Marry Me by Veronica Patterson : American Life in Poetry

The Poetry Foundation

Library of Congress

University of Nebraska
at Lincoln

American Life in Poetry: Column 172

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

I don’t often talk about poetic forms in this column, thinking that most of my readers aren’t interested in how the clock works and would rather be given the time. But the following poem by Veronica Patterson of Colorado has a subtitle referring to a form, the senryu, and I thought it might be helpful to mention that the senryu is a Japanese form similar to haiku but dealing with people rather than nature. There; enough said. Now you can forget the form and enjoy the poem, which is a beautiful sketch of a marriage.

Marry Me

when I come late to bed

I move your leg flung over my side—

that warm gate

nights you’re not here

I inch toward the middle

of this boat, balancing

when I turn over in sleep

you turn, I turn, you turn,

I turn, you

some nights you tug the edge

of my pillow under your cheek,

look in my dream

pulling the white sheet

over your bare shoulder

I marry you again

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2000 by Veronica Patterson, whose most recent book of poetry is “This Is the Strange Part,” Pudding House Publications, 2002. Poem reprinted from “Swan, What Shores?” New York University Press, 2000, by permission of Veronica Patterson and New York University Press. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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