POEM

Negotiation

by Lisa Olstein

You take the mortar; I’ll take the pestle,
the weight we laid five years before the door.

You take the door, its flank and hollow.
You take the hollow morning we set out,

I’ll take the conch shell, the sea.
You take the sea, our kitchen window looking out on it.

I’ll take the kitchen; you take the potatoes,
their rough edges, their eyes.

You take the flashlight’s eye we turned skyward
to rebut the stars. I’ll take the sky it travels.

You take my fear of long journeys, of talking in my sleep.
I’ll take sleep and the first morning sounds

of the monastery on the hill. You take the monks;
I’ll take the way they sweep the ground

before every step, the way they nurse other men’s
crippled oxen through long flickering nights.

 Lisa   Olstein

Olstein grew up near Boston, Massachusetts. She received a BA from Barnard College and an MFA in . . . MORE »

More Poems by Lisa Olstein

In the Meantime

Dear One Absent This Long While

Dream in Which I Love a Third Baseman

The Hypnotist's Daughter

Another Story with a Burning Barn in It

MORE »

Related

More Relationship Poems

More Cycle of Life Poems


Radio Crackling, Radio Gone
(Copper Canyon Press)



Report a Problem