EMILY AS I WROTE THAT WHOLE BOOK TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH OF A MESS I WILL BE IF YOU DIE BEFORE I DO
I wrote all ninety-six of those poems,
so that you might understand how often
I imagine you dying when you’re an hour
late from when you said you’d be home.
I wrote the book so you would keep your phone
charged. I wrote that book so you might
experience the whole of my catastrophe
response. I placed the book at a publisher
in Australia, so you’d never actually read it.
Darren C. Demaree’s poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear, in numerous magazines/journals, including Diode, Meridian, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review. Demaree is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Many Full Hands Applauding Inelegantly (2016, 8th House Publishing). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry.
The Paddock Review 