Non-Sonnet for the You Behind the Bedroom Door
                       

Dear Reader, when I say I mean to ravage you,
I’m generally talking to ice cubes.
When, pleading in a scaly voice, I say That’s so
out-of-doors of you, I mean I am afraid you will leave me
with my muffler of sea-green foam, my star-shaped
sunglasses. When I tell you that I love my neighbor,
I actually mean my next-door neighbor—how his crying
makes the trees bow over the house,
makes the grass try to stand up straighter.

When, signed off and halfway sleeping, I murmur
O fabulous coverlet! it means I feel ready for death’s comfort.
When I say again I’ll be sorry when this ends, and my voice
is shards of ice, then I’m not addressing my drink,
but rather the whole mad collection of You.

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Copyright © 2012 Betsy Wheeler All rights reserved
from Loud Dreaming in a Quiet Room
The National Poetry Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission