To the Couple Lingering on the Doorstep by Deborah Landau
To the Couple Lingering on the Doorstep
Deborah LandauQuit kissing beneath my window.
The day turns shady
as you lean
feeding, feeding.Night arrives, red-gold
and windlessand still you persist.
I’ve had enough
slobber and gush.And let me say this:
the problem with passion
isn’t that it doesn’t last
but that it does,and you’ll find yourself alone in a room,
blistered and husky-voiced, watching
the side of your building turn to flame.Beware a woman at a window,
something heavy in her hand.
ABOUT DEBORAH LANDAU
Deborah Landau is the author of five collections of poetry, including Skeletons (2023); Soft Targets (2019), winner of the 2019 Believer Book Award in Poetry; The Uses of the Body (2015); and The Last Usable Hour (2011), all from Copper Canyon Press; and Orchidelirium (Anhinga Press, 2004), selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the Robert Dana-Anhinga Prize for Poetry. A Spanish edition of The Uses of the Body was published as Los usos del cuerpo by Valparaiso Ediciones in 2017. (Source)
Read more poems by Deborah Landau • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Follow on Instagram • Twitter • Facebook • Website • Or view my library
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