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Haiku Free Verse Prosies
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They didn't warn you about the pale sorrow in your own belly
that would envelope you on a sultry summer night
with the Wheel tipping up to its no-return
They didn't warn you that you'd hunger in an empty bed
and pledge your love to a dry husk
who once held the taste of sweetness,
whose promise of remembered juice
lingers ahead of you on a string
 If you would just
if you would just
They didn't warn you of the moment,
the ultimate lonely
on a well-traveled walk in the Common,
when you would stop and step outside the stream of traffic
to watch the women in their summer shoes,
the children students businessmen go by,
leaning against the green peeling paint,
and feeling the weight
of all the Boston marriages that came before yours
They said it would be easy, a sweet
unfolding—not a rose,
but a peony, lusher and with fewer thorns,
The peony springs
full-grown from the bush,
and thrives on moist soil.
You were led to expect patchouli, cats, and baking bread,
the welcoming curve of your lover’s back,
her long, tangled hair cascading over you
on a sunlit Sunday morning,
and her laugh-freckled skin
against the linen sheets.
You were led to expect an herb garden at the back door,
next to the white stairs, overlooking the rolling hills
and the sun slanting through it,
a corridor of joy.
You got this grey city,
a bare patch of earth next to asphalt,
the smell of shoe leather,
a woman whose fierce protection claims you like a frame,
who cooks with astonishing efficiency,
but retreats to the couch each night,
insisting that you move each limb
which touches her.
You find yourself here, open, fending
for yourself across the Common,
helpless in the thrall of the summer evening,
the song of its rising emanating from your body, the rising of the moon
and the sun's orbit across the sky, in just
summer.
The season’s call rolls off your hips like pollen,
calls glances from men, turns lewdness to an art.
You catch yourself, close your own face,
shove hands in your pockets,
heart-aching and half-opened,
but always hoping always hoping
and dreading because
in this moment of June what you want
is what the sultry air promises,
what they promised you
before you took the faithless leap
into the cold, naked world.
—Frances Donovan
June 2003, July 2003
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