JOANNE DETORE-NAKAMURA

Poem Writing

I’d like to write a poem about
the night we first met and talked
through sips of beer in plastic cups,
illuminated by the light
of a bonfire stoked with old English textbooks,
about the time when our love was
new, when making love was like breathing,
about the times when every day was a
action-thriller, car-chase and high-wire
act in the middle of hot, humid
Southern-Illinois days accompanied by
a sound track of manic, violin-vibrating cicadas.

I’d like to write a poem about the time
when our love grew into new life,
about the joy and anxiety of raising our children,
about the difficult times,
when the eye of the storm brewed inside us,
testing the hinges of our commitment,
with the contents of our life racing by.
Possessions lost, moments never recovered.
We moved on.

I want so much to write a poem for you
and our love, but it is so hard to write now,
to decide whether to elegize our young love
or toast the dissonant dance of everyday.

I’d like to write a poem that tells you that,
even with all the missteps, the false starts and stops,
I’ve enjoyed this – whatever it is.
But I can never seem to capture it
within the borders of a page,
too flat and static
to be what it is,
too easy to use
the backspace key –
re-writing and overwriting –
so there it is.

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