Santa Fe Poetry Broadside
Issue #15, April, 2000 : -- -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10  11 -12
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Women Becoming Poems:
Betsy Fogelman Tighe

                 

Tent Rocks

   Having been through so many
I do not even bother to hope
   that you, with your ardor and constancy,
     may be the one

   though I love how you whisper my name,
the actions that you take, and the years that sheltered you
   in marriage from the repeated disappointments
     that make a man cavalier and cold.

   We go down in the canyon
of volcanic rock where what remains
   are the shapes of teepees aslant, tall narrow cones,
     each balancing a rounded stone.

   It is the February thaw, a blue
jay is fooled into friendliness,
   more people are on the path.
     You hold me here and moan
like the wind coming through the close passages.

   Later, when we make love,
the first time, we are afraid
and want to turn away. But don't.
   I am no longer young

   and still, am not sure
I'll know when my mate is with me,
   admiring the certainty of those
     who say, "You must feel this,
you will know that."

   We stand on the mesa
while the mating hawks fly over,
their nests on the edges of the rock.
   You do not falter. You have come to me,
you touch me all over.



Copyright © 1992 Betsy Fogelman Tighe.

About the poet.

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Issue #15, April, 2000 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.