Adele Bourne

http://www.archive.org/download/AdeleBourne_DivorceGrafitti/AdeleBourne.mp3

DIVORCE GRAFFITI

abandoned to absolutes
tomorrow will be
different

insane demand
for passé
routine

grow up
give up
throw up

look for father
in husband,
get child

they have our genes
how forestall
our insanity

tuning fork
to plow

equilibrium
or
lithium

sex can be sublimated
anguish has its uses

overflow
remembered
in ebb.

once had been a concubine
found out it’s not my line

no hetaera I know of
taught seventh grade

adult to the extent
of my ambiguity

HUSBANDRY

for JSB

Reporting on the test results,
Dr Crow causes my affect
to droop. I slump home.
You greet me at the door,

note my drowned expression,
sit me down. I spill the blues
for nearly an hour. You listen,
take my fists in your strong hands.

Of course, I’m frightened, but the doctor
might not be right, and, if he was,
we know the routine. You sing a song
you learned when you were ten, tell a joke

I’ve never heard before. Back from the brink,
I don’t explode but shake with laughter.
You hug me in relief, fortify my tea, pour
yourself a drink Anyway, there’s no grief

harder than what we already bear. Besides,
we’re all in the soup. Eventually, we go to bed,
find there’s some time left before we’re dead.
My rod and my staff, how you comfort me.

Adele Bourne lives in New Jersey with her husband, John, also a poet. She is a member of the Mad Poets Society, The US 1 Poets’ Cooperative and her poetry has been featured on the web site of the Quick and Dirty Poets. Adele has served as the literary editor for the Arts Council of Princeton’s Under Age, an annual anthology of works by students grades K-12. Her poetry has appeared in the Mad Poets Review, The Barefoot Muse and U. S. 1 Worksheets.