JAMES MERENDA
Semantics
How do I comprise you
and you and you
Weekly poems, selected by the editors. Featuring new work as well as poems from our rich archives.
How do I comprise you
and you and you
This is not the realm of will or desire.
so many ways of talking about the body’s grace
as though death is a bedroom you’re swept into / by a passion so strong you don’t care what thread / and buttons you scatter behind
I wonder if they’d carry / the sadness of a man like me.
I felt most myself by the river.
My power, my only power
was fear.
And all at once, the house had twice
as many rooms
rain is a blessing from god she said
covered in hose water and mud
I found myself in the maternity ward, facing
someone else’s child