Lemondrop

The Poetry of Breakup

No one could describe a broken heart better than a poet. In "It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup" ($10.76, Amazon.com), each today's big contemporary poets make breaking up and even divorce sound painfully beautiful. You'll will want to read with a box of tissues, a pint of chocolate ice cream and sappy love songs playing in the background.

"I lean against the refrigerator,
not looking at you, or anything,
just staring at a space which you no longer inhabit,
that you've abandoned completely now to footsteps receding
to the next feeding station,
where a woman will be eaten alive
after cocktails at five.

The flowers and chocolates, the kisses,
the swings and near misses of new love
will confuse her,
until you start to abuse her,
verbally at first." -- "Finished" by AI

The Poetry of Breakup

"I can't touch you.
His face always returns; we exchange long looks in each bad dream & what I see, my God.
Honey, sweetheart,
I hold you against me
but nothing works." -- "After Summer Fell Apart" by Yusef Komunyakaa

The Poetry of Breakup

"Just before she flew off like a swan
to her wealthy parents' summer home,
Bruce's college girlfriend asked him to improve his expertise at oral sex,
and offered him some technical advice:

Use nothing but his tonguetip
to flick the light switch in his room
on and off a hundred times a day until he grew fluent at the nuances
of force and latitude." -- "Self-Improvement" by Tony Hoagland

The Poetry of Breakup

"...I stand dripping
in the shower where I once knelt
before him to drink whatever came out of him, sometimes he would watch me as I walked naked around the room,
here I am, it's the same room, I'm still
seeing his face the night it closed
to me forever like a failed business..." -- "Beginning With His Body And Ending In A Small Town" by Kim Addonizio

The Poetry of Breakup

"Time will stop here. A man with a suitcase
going out and coming in. Opening a car door.
Whose wife and son cry at his goings
and again at his return, whose lives have stopped,
waiting for him to choose." -- "Curse Four: Orders For The End of Time" by Cynthia Huntington

The Poetry of Breakup

"Be the bewildered woman
Half lifting her skirts to cross a muddy street
While a rain cloud watches." -- "What To Wear For Divorce" by Angela Ball

The Poetry of Breakup

"Once we were together
I missed just sitting beside him, in a crowded
room, say, his sleeve rolled just below, the elbow, the muscle
swelling." -- "Longing" by Donna Masini

The Poetry of Breakup

"He says his wife's name by stroking the soft wood of the table.
The nine o'clock windows surrounding us are mirrors.
With seven days of beard, I resemble forgetting.
My wife goes to bed.
He picks up her napkin and tells me I'm lucky,
but I remember falling to the floor when a woman left me,
how good it felt, cool and staying down there
for three years." -- "5:14 From Chicago" by Bob Hicok

The Poetry of Breakup

"My muscles unravel
like spools of ribbon:
there is not a shadow

of pain. I will pose
like this for the rest
of the afternoon,

for the remainder of all noons..."
-- "Why I Will Not Get Out of Bed" by James Tate

The Poetry of Breakup

"...How can we stop ourselves
from want? Do I touch you with my eyes?
You have a wife, me, and now this third;
we rotate around you like three human moons.
You turn; your hand is raised. What should I think?
What should I feel? I'd like to say it doesn't
matter. Should I lie to spare myself?" -- -- "Through the Glass" by Beth Gylys

The Poetry of Breakup