Monologue at Nine A.M.
Louise Glück


"It's no small thing, this coming
To this cantabile. Living
With him's been fever from outset
Sixteen years ago. For sixteen years I've sat
And waited for things to get better. I have to laugh.
You know, I used to dream that I might ebb to death
Or else he fall in love again and turn the hose
On someone else. Well, I suppose he has.
I thought I sensed an absence, and today he left his poached
Egg staring like a dying eye, his toast untouched."

Dead End
Louise Glück


I said, "Listen, angel, wean me from this bit." 
I said, "Divorce me from this crap, this steady diet
Of abuse with cereal, abuse
With vodka and tomato juice,
Your planted billets doux among the bric-a-brac."
Staying was my way of hitting back.
I tended his anemia and did the dishes
Four months—the whole vicious,
Standard cohabitation. But my dear, my dear,
If now I dream about your hands, your hair,
It is the vividness of that dead end
I miss. Like chess. Mind against mind.

The Red Poppy
Louise Glück


The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak 
because I am shattered.