Ring by Melissa Stein Control was all I wanted: a handle on the day, the night when it curved, when it swayed, when I could sense the teeming stars in light, in dark the sun's bare wire. Some switch to turn it off: each shadow pinned to each tree like a radius of some infant's milk it spilled. And the leaves, their gossip of claw and beak and wind and heat and wing. Tether lake to bank and cloud to peak. And weather it. Weather it. All this to say I've taken off my ring. |
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Copyright © 2013 by Melissa Stein. Used with permission of the author. |
About this Poem: "During a writing residency at the Blue Mountain Center, I read Major Jackson's poem "On Removing the Wedding Band" in Holding Company, and it hit me with agonizing clarity. In that Adirondack setting, it combined with an experience that had recently drop-kicked me out of my comfort zone and set me thinking about the notions we hold of stability and commitment, sparking this poem about veering toward and away--or maybe just veering."
Melissa Stein |
Poetry by Stein Rough Honey |
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