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Excerpts from a Marriage by John Grey

Writer's picture: The Mark Literary ReviewThe Mark Literary Review

Updated: Dec 15, 2019

Found a key

but to which door?

What kind of unlucky bird is that,

discovered, after the rain,

having landed in a puddle of its own death?


And what kind of item

could you buy at a flea market

that would be of any use?


I know you think you’re god.

But the God? Or just a god?


Now where did I put my pills?

And in which novel on this shelf did I stuff the C-note?

F. Scott Fitzgerald, tell me. Is it you?

Losing things is the direct opposite of staying calm.


Do you reckon we will ever again play the old board game?

Should I toss it out

or keep it so that I can ask this very same question

a year from now?

Take a deep breath and maybe

finally listen to that new Leonard Cohen CD.


In my dreams, I stumbled into a woman named Samantha.

And now, come morning, my leg is aching.

And you’re weeping on my shoulder.

Part of my husband duties is to take the weight.


We both like to lie down in the afternoon

though not always together.

You prefer the perfume of new cut grass.

I’d rather the intermittent hoopla of a ball game.


Ever wondered why the dog circles like that before it sits?

Do you ever wonder about anything?

Really, all this constant questioning of nobody in particular

leaves me exhausted.


I would circle like a dog myself

except that I am not a dog.

I am only this—endless straight lines.

They have a meaning you will explain to me some day.


John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Muse, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and the Dunes Review.

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