Emily as Regret or Premonition

She was right. I
harbored
an apocalypse element

in my solitary thread.
To want
any revolution at all

is to offer up a stabbing
moment of pleasure
that gambles

the landscape it creates.
No matter. I’m
a coward for her.

I take myself to her
bells. I leave the rest of it
to become rope

without me.
All this muscle
& only play-burns.

*

Emily as Grain, in the Old Way 

Y’all should stop
fucking around
with these more

intimate voices.
There’s too much
death beneath

the crop to hide
our joy amidst
a goddamn canon.

*

Emily as Hollering

You ever see fire
overtake
a birdsong?

The whole county
can taste it when
the right woman

says hello
to emptiness
with real joy.

Darren C. Demaree‘s poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear, in numerous magazines/journals, including Hotel Amerika, Diode, North American Review, New Letters, Diagram, and Colorado Review.