I've cultivated this, too

I've cultivated this, too.

A poem by Alejandro Manuel Espinoza

Anymore I never show my true visage,

instead keeping it from his conundrums,

which in some day had clothed me in an electric blanket

and fed me to ward off any detriment,

but anymore I don't think of that.

I wear a mask to the dinner table,

as he labors over a boiling pot and oven mitts

and spoons the contents into my open bowl,

wrought with justified lament.

I make my conversation valueless,

and between us a distortion is beginning to grow

as I watch it in a Petri dish.

May the day come when I shall cease loathing him

And his hairs are too grey to start over again? 

Author's Note

An Imitation of Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays"

Reviews

[October]

I love the imagery in this. It's beautifully written.