a suite of five poems, beginning "Karenin on . . . " by Kelly R. Samuels
Karenin on Punctuality
You will think me foolish for being here
on time to meet your train, but I am a busy man
and this just one of my many tasks.
Schedules matter, even in the evenings
for what some call love. Enough with details
and thoughtful conversational pauses.
Can’t you speak of what I most want
to hear of, now? Let us put off offering
our hands to acquaintances and visiting
with them on platforms. Let us be on our way.
Give me the surface and brief niceties—
the quick release for what next must be done.
Karenin on Hearing You Gasp as the Horse Falls
Undoubtedly the back is broken
and a merciful death will be given,
but you can only think of the man.
Your thrashing fan, your eyes set
on the course. Consider: all
these spectators and what will be
said. This gasp confirms and, yet,
I shield you just now, flailing about
like a netted bird. Do not ever say
I did not lend you my arm
more than once and offer
an invitation for quiet leave-taking.
Karenin on Meeting Your Lover in the Foyer
Would that it would not have happened
this winter in this small space with me
departing. My hat has never covered
my big ears, and thus: I looked a fool, raw
and red and blushing at the sight of him
coming in to meet you where I asked you not to—
wife, mother of my child with your belly round
with another. I hear the women talk. I see
how the lawyer who catches moths
in his hands will slyly smile behind
closed doors. Out on the walk, I stamp
my boots, rage at the indiscernible clouds
dropping their snow.
Karenin on Making Do
I have taken to shrieking upon provocation
and, then, requesting time to recover.
It is one way to still be heard.
Later, I am found in dimly-lit rooms
speaking of new gods, or old gods, my new
heart, or old altered one. You left, recall.
And I have had to make do, securing
my better name, my soul, our son
who has grown broad and now thinks of you
rarely, as I aim—casting my tired eyes
upward toward what we call heaven.
Karenin on Convenient Ends
I am too busy to speak long with you—
you, mean and low, flinging yourself
to your fit end. What would you heed,
anyway? Trains are departing from
familiar stations. There’s a rumble
of war, a cry from the nursery, something
or other to sign. Means and ends. Ends
and means. I walk, unfettered now, with
a light step resembling yours once spoken
of years ago.
Kelly r. samuels
Kelly R. Samuels is the author of the full-length collection All the Time in the World (Kelsay Books) and two chapbooks: Words Some of Us Rarely Use and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee with work appearing in The Massachusetts Review, RHINO, and Court Green. She lives in the Upper Midwest.
Headshot: Kate Marguerite Netwal
Photo Credit:Staff