Poems in Converation and a Conversation
| Denise Duhamel and Amy Lemmon |
| Enjoy
Hot or Iced: Poems in Converation and a Conversation | |
| 2011 |
| " " |
Denise
Duhamel
Boxed
Set Sestina
I
hid my hopes in a cigar box on Christmas, but you gave them away on Boxing Day
(in Canada). I clipped box tops for coupons while you gobbled an expensive Bento
box lunch. You were a noshow as I waited in line at the box office in the satin
pillbox hat I bought at the thrift shop. I collected hatboxes while you flew your
box kite wearing only your boxers. Our lovemaking once wore out the box springs,
but now you said you felt boxed in. I slumped in the last row while you glowed
with someone else in our box seats. You slept in first class while I shivered
in the boxcar. I never got your love letter because you forgot to put it in the
mailbox. I felt so neglected I ate fistfuls of croutons right from the box in
my boxy, unflattering housedress. My shadow box was filled with ceramic figurines
of you. Your toolbox was as empty as our icebox. I stayed home, blaring my boom
box, while you drank at the bar, wasting quarters on a dusty jukebox. You told
me to get off my soapbox. Were our problems bigger than a breadbox? Yes! Especially
when I caught you peeing in the sandbox or dipping into the cashbox while you
thought I wasn’t looking. It’s true I was a chatterbox, but you can’t deny you
put your affection in a lockbox while you played with your vintage Matchbox cars.
It was up to me to open the fuse box and fix the problem—up to me to take kickboxing
to defend myself. I thought outside the box when I played your favorite song,
Daddy Cool’s “Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box,” on my squeezebox. I was hoping to win
you back after our most vicious boxing match—thirtynine rounds of screaming that
made the German boxer nextdoor growl. It had all started when your word “boxwallah”
wasn’t in the Scrabble dictionary; then I won with “carboxyl.” You snatched up
your ebony snuffbox while I tore the boxberries from our flowerbox. I stuffed
a shoebox with regret. You packed up your Hot Wheels lunchbox and left.
Amy
Lemmon
Enjoy
Hot or Iced
You’ve
brewed this stuff, now drink it—
these dreggy-dregs, this filter-silt,
the
tiny bits that cling to tongue.
You always liked it strong and now
you’ve
got it at its darkest, split
us at the core to brew a full bold flavor,
so
each must shoulder/bear the double-weight
of everything except the other’s
body.
I hope you have your fun and drink it, too,
iced now as much as
it was hot. I don’t. I didn’t
order it this way. I wanted café au lait,
and
when the waiter brought it and I asked for water,
he said flat “No” and mugged—a
joke, I thought,
but sure enough, he never brought a glass, left me
to
fend with froth and squeeze a dollar tip. He thought
he was funny. You think
you’re kind, you think
you’re sensible, you think you’re something
I can’t
quite imagine. What of the Monet’s
lily-pads of mold on Earl Grey cooling
in the jar?
The brown scrub-nulling scum that clings
to the worn Picasso
mug? The ghosts of shattered crockery,
the cartoon souls of slain French press
carafes?
Yours, yours, mine, ours. It’s a tossup,
so you clay-pigeon it
again and pull! Shoot! A hit!
My heart, I mean, that flat and battered thing
you had and lately thought so little of.