Six Years
where did the night go
our days so full so long
our bed now a place to nod off early with the dogs
you are my center always my pillar my sturdy cement foundation
what difference does it make what we do
I decide to keep loving you even when you decide to be a cop
in the year of bad cops and dead people who shouldn’t be dead
I say what better woman lesbian liberal well-read person in uniform
than you so I keep loving you even though I know you’ll finger the trigger
and everything I’ve ever read to you about privilege
in that second won’t matter
it will be you or them
maybe no one will ever die by your hands
the same hands I crave as our eyelids win the night
what causes pain
the nonexistent scenarios we dream up
the nonexistent future consoling your guilt for the body that dropped
the nonexistent nights spent cleaning up your shit after surviving a shot
what brings lust back
the cuffs dangling from your belt
the excitement of riding along hearing you repeat codes 10-4 27-8 10-99
watching you be hard secretly wishing you were harder
will you cuff me in bed
play good cop bad cop
it’s true if you quit I’ll support you on the safer road on any road
it’s true I crave more for the tough road
it’s true I wait for tragedy
it’s true I crave the same desk everyday
and you crave more danger a law you can trust
Tara Shea Burke is from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and lives with her partner in rural New Mexico. She served as poetry editor for The Quotable and Barely South Review, and is a guest editor and board member for Sinister Wisdom, a Multicultural Lesbian Literature and Arts Journal. Her chapbook Let the Body Beg was published by ELJ Publications, and recent poems can be found in The Fourth River, Adrienne (Sibling Rivalry Press), Yellow Chair Review, Calyx, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Minola Review, Public Pool, and more. She teaches in Santa Fe. Find more with links at:
