EMILY AS SOMEHOW THE SILHOUETTE DRIPPED

She is the sea.
That includes
the outline

of her shadow.
How playful
she is to have

created a tide
for me to be
taken under.

EMILY AS WE CANNOT SAIL THE COFFIN

We get to have an ending.
How glorious. We get
to rest as the whole

separated by the right way.
How much of a blessing
it is to know

that this is all there is
& this is more than
any late

endorphin kick can create.

EMILY AS THE FRAGMENTS AS THEY’RE PASSING

I never wanted a horse.
I wanted to be the horse.
Emily, she just wanted

to race me everywhere.
I won every time
she let me win. That

is how our love works.
When she is alone
& running only for herself,

she can take the commotion
of the world and run
past all of it. I am

how she chooses to spend
her abstract heart
when it needs to rest.

Darren’s poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including Diode, Meridian, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review.

He is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Many Full Hands Applauding Inelegantly (2016, 8th House Publishing). He is also the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry.

He lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.