All the Familiar Woes
by Joshua Boettiger
This morning, the shore ice anchored to the bank
snaps off and flows downriver, massive granular
angels unhoused. Everything else quiet, opaline
and deep-drifted. Marbled and still.
Four days of snow and I can’t remember ever
smelling the earth. I feel you move around
the cabin and I know our bodies are tired
from the resistance, the blame, the damning
of the whole enterprise. The thought,
what if this is how it is always going to be?
And there is the suffering. Not in the marriage itself.
We look up and the marriage is still there.
Surprised, we sit around the oak table spreading
butter on dark bread. All around us hanging
from the beams are bundles of herbs drying
by their stems – rosemary, oregano, lavender.
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