Judith Skillman is the author of twenty full-length poetry collections, and recipient of awards from Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust. A Landscaped Garden for the Addictis forthcoming from Shanti Arts Press. Poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Poetry, Threepenny Review, Zyzzyva, and elsewhere. Judith is editor of When Home Is Not Safe—Writings on Domestic Verbal, Emotional, and Physical Abuse, McFarland Books. Visit www.judithskillman.com

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Rain

Percussion on the metal roof
its fingers a mad woman dancing
only for herself
as a grandmother might
in a moment of remembrance
waltz to the Danube
puddles grow large
the longer one turns to a stream
the world ends again
with no ark
no animals to shovel aboard

Mephistopheles

Not as vulnerable as Faust perhaps
still his pots and pans call beneath a popcorn sky
in October

the clouds’ blind eyes sworn to secrecy
by slant light’s comings and goings
no longer Gretchen

I love my full stomach of poison
my little fool
eaten five times a day sometimes more

The flea bites
maybe that’s age in a house one age or another
college boys singing into beer on tap

Taps driven into the table by no other than
the kitchen warden
and this sinner

Who wouldn’t be drawn into such a bargain
I ask the earth where soon I’ll lie
my insides pulverized so as not to stink

Who could resist sashaying away from boredom
set chores at set hours
grown children

One mustn’t talk so much he’ll say
drawing the cape around the both of us
conspiratorial through stories

of rooms behind other rooms
songs inside the melody
notes flat from not having practiced

A constant rain

From the sky
on our cottage
by the ocean
sheets of water
fall sidewise
fly apart
as if some deity
knew he needed
to be alone
here together
tethered to more years
of marriage
than either of us
care to remember
parents
grandparents
soon to be great
grandparents as our grand girl
joked us
before she left
our house
at Thanksgiving
I’m pregnant
so yes
now it is time
to listen
every second
to this dirge
on our roof
away from home
and know that I find
myself back in love
with you
apart from the clutter
of so many lives
lived inside
one another.