- Love
I keep trying to get him to take herbal pillshe has no interest in
worry daily about places in his arteriesforced open by man-placed mesh
each winter I buy him gloveshe never wears
nights I wait till he’s fast asleepmemorize his snoring patternskiss his headtake off his glassesclean, then put them where I knowhe’ll reach for them
pray each day he’ll outlive meso I don’t have to rememberwhat it was like to be alonein the dark. [End Page 240]
Mary Weems is a poet, playwright, author, performer, imagination-intellect theorist, and social/cultural foundations scholar. Weems is the author of thirteen books, including Blackeyed: Plays and Monologues (Brill/Sense, 2015) and Writings of Healing and Resistance: Empathy and the Imagination-Intellect (Peter Lang, 2012). Both of her books of poems, An Unmistakable Shade of Red and the Obama Chronicles (Bottom Dog, 2008) and For(e)closure (Main Street Rag, 2012), were finalists for the Ohioana Book Awards. In 2015, Weems received the Cleveland Arts Prize’s “Emerging Artist Award in Literature.” She has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.