POEM
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Marblehead

By Rebecca Lindenberg Rebecca Lindenberg

    not to be in love with you
I can’t remember what it was like
           it must’ve been lousy
                             James Schuyler

You take off your black

motorcycle jacket, hang it

on the back of a chair. It’s cold

from our walk along the sea wall.

Your pockets jingle with shells.

While we were gone, you left

the stove on low—some things

you do make me so nervous.

You graze the surface of sauce

simmering in a pan, shiny fingertip

held out for me to lick, you say

“What does it need?” Maybe nothing,

maybe honey to unbitter the lime.

Later that night you’ll bury your face

in my belly and sob. “I’m sorry,”

though I don’t think you are

always talking to me, my love.

But now lobster steam billows

up the window, you gulp

purple wine, your pinky sticking out,

and the round olives are the green

all green things aspire to be.

Source: Love, an Index (McSweeney's Publishing, 2012)

Biography

Rebecca Lindenberg earned a BA from the College of William & Mary and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Utah. Her essays and criticism have appeared widely, and she has been a guest blogger for the Best American Poetry Blog. Her collection of poetry, Love, An Index (2012), focuses on her relationship with her partner, the poet Craig Arnold; Terrance Hayes described the poems as a “litany of losses . . .

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