Carolyn Martin is blissfully retired in Clackamas, OR, where she gardens, writes, and plays with creative friends. Her poems have appeared in publications throughout the US and UK including Antiphon, Stirring, Naugatuck River Review and Persimmon Tree. Her second collection, The Way a Woman Knows, was released by The Poetry Box, Portland, OR, in February 2015. Carolyn served as president of VoiceCatcher from 2011-2014 and was the first managing editor of its online literary/art journal and its community website.

This poem is the second and final poem in a two-part series featuring Carolyn’s work. Read Carolyn’s previous poem, I love you more than Mariska Hargitay

this morning in the rain I chased your car
halfway down the street intent on ranting
about pots and baking pans greasing up
the sink and sheets of Fed-Ex bubble wrap
obscuring piles of mail and your grey coat
invading my green chair but I wasn’t
fast enough to catch your rearview glance
so I punched your cell to sear your day
with guilt for how I felt put-upon/
crowded-out/ and all those pent-up things
I never say until they burn and how
I could forgive if you were off to work
to shop to pray not out to lunch with friends
but I struck delete when I recalled
your kiss good-bye and words we vowed to say
(Let us be kind) when love’s reduced to sniping/
blaming/hurt and smallest things conspire
to ruin sunsets on a Maui beach
or walks around our autumned neighborhood
so this is just to let you know I’ve scrubbed
the pans/re-hung your coat/cleared out debris
from my morning’s discontent practicing
Let me be kind again and then again

[Previously published in Star 82 Review]