I Stay Overnight When Your
Wife Is in Town
Wife Is in Town
by Shoshauna Shy
not due to sly intention
but a quirk of happenstance,
company playwrights that we are,
not lovers.
Evergreens lean either side
of the windshield, rain slashes
the climb to your ridge.
This raft of words we set sail
while holding soup bowls
between our thumbs
keeps us afloat, dry, the hours
tilting by with laughter’s
easy splash.
Velvet shadows conspiring,
it wouldn’t take much
in this gifted stretch
of the unexpected
to send these loosely-laced logs
off-script, make them crash,
dunk us deep.
You show me the stairs to the bed
in which you’ll sleep, the sloping
roof of my room, the shelf of quilts
to seal warmth’s weight.
Neither of our doors, swollen
with years of farmhouse chill
and thaw fasten shut completely.
The floor creaks stage left,
stage right, your dog
pacing between them.
________________________
Shoshauna Shy’s poems have been published in numerous journals
and magazines which include Cimarron Review, The Comstock
Review, Rosebud, and Poetry Northwest. One of her poems was
selected for the Poetry 180 Library of Congress program launched
by Billy Collins. Shy is the author of four collections of poetry and
works for the Wisconsin Humanities Council in Madison, Wisconsin.
◄ Previous Page Apple Valley Review, Fall 2007 Next page ►
not due to sly intention
but a quirk of happenstance,
company playwrights that we are,
not lovers.
Evergreens lean either side
of the windshield, rain slashes
the climb to your ridge.
This raft of words we set sail
while holding soup bowls
between our thumbs
keeps us afloat, dry, the hours
tilting by with laughter’s
easy splash.
Velvet shadows conspiring,
it wouldn’t take much
in this gifted stretch
of the unexpected
to send these loosely-laced logs
off-script, make them crash,
dunk us deep.
You show me the stairs to the bed
in which you’ll sleep, the sloping
roof of my room, the shelf of quilts
to seal warmth’s weight.
Neither of our doors, swollen
with years of farmhouse chill
and thaw fasten shut completely.
The floor creaks stage left,
stage right, your dog
pacing between them.
________________________
Shoshauna Shy’s poems have been published in numerous journals
and magazines which include Cimarron Review, The Comstock
Review, Rosebud, and Poetry Northwest. One of her poems was
selected for the Poetry 180 Library of Congress program launched
by Billy Collins. Shy is the author of four collections of poetry and
works for the Wisconsin Humanities Council in Madison, Wisconsin.
◄ Previous Page Apple Valley Review, Fall 2007 Next page ►
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Apple Valley Review:
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 2, Number 2
(Fall 2007)
Copyright © 2007
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 2, Number 2
(Fall 2007)
Copyright © 2007
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
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