Grief, don’t go. You’re almost out the door.
I would not offend—what was I thinking?
Nothing. Finally. In fact, it’s more
a leveling’s begun, instead of sinking.
I must give thanks, and almost missed my chance.
I’d started sewing. Is the noise what’s wrong?
(It’s not as though we all began to dance.)
But look, that couch is hideous! How long
has it been filthy? It needs linen, neat
and tight and beige as an Egyptian shroud.
Then one might sit in comfort and repeat
the history of sorrowing out loud.
Go, goddess. You absolve and you excuse,
but home improvement needs an unstained muse.
Meredith Bergmann is a sculptor and poet. She is currently working on the FDR Hope Memorial for Roosevelt Island, NYC. Pictures of her work may be seen at her website. Her poems, articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in the American Arts Quarterly, Barrow Street, The New Criterion, The New York Review of Art, The Tri Quarterly Review, and Sculpture Review and online at Contemporary Poetry Review, MezzoCammin, PerContra and Umbrella. Her sonnets appear in Judith Dupré’s Full of Grace and the anthology Hot Sonnets. She is poetry editor of American Arts Quarterly and its website.
