Emily as the Wilderness
I am lost
in all this lush.
Don’t
look for me.
Emily as We Make Love in a Boat Parked in the Used Car Lot
There is no ocean in Ohio.
That tide is us being ornery.
No, we don’t want the boat.
Emily as What She Wrote
She’s used her name
to marry me,
to commit me
to rehab, to send for me
to come home, to give
our children
legal names, to rename
me in the eyes
of those children
& yes, I wrote ten
thousand poems for her,
but what is that?
Darren C. Demaree’s poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including Hotel Amerika, Diode, North American Review, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review. Demaree is the author of twenty-three poetry collections, most recently So Much More (November 2024, Harbor Editions). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. Demaree currently lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.