To My Lover, After Our Discussion of Poetry

When you came in last night and said, "What's that
you're writing?" and I answered, "Poetry",
you told me that I couldn't feed the cat,
much less indulge in truffles and Chablis,
on what I'd earn by that. So now I know:
you need a higher income in your bed,
a lawyer or a lady CEO.
The worst you think of me has now been said.
While you're at work tomorrow I'll clean house,
pack luggage, do the laundry and my hair.
When you come home you'll find that I've moved out,
taking my unproductive life elsewhere.
We're through, my love. But since you knew no better,
I've left this poem and not a Dear John letter.

by Gail White

Gail White is active in the New Formalist movement and appears frequently in its journals and anthologies. An essay on her work appeared in the first issue of Mezzo Cammin. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Contact Gail White.

Weaving Our Lives

I told him that I loved him as I left.
But does he know exactly what that meant?
He may think I have made it my intent
to be the warp on life's loom; he the weft;
or subjugate my pattern to his own
and wrap my threads about him, hold him tight,
or hurtle like a shuttle left to right,
to be with him and let him set the tone.

That is not so: for when I say I love
I mean I've let him see what some might leave,
and in my secret heart what I dream of
is that we'll use our strengths and fears to weave
a fabric on life's loom. Let us create
our tapestry from threads of different weight.

by Ann Leamon

Ann Leamon has been an economist, a bike mechanic, a lollipop cook, and a pastry chef. Currently , she writes business cases on venture capital and private equity for Harvard Business School and does corporate communications for Bessemer Venture Partners. Her writing has appeared in The Electric Power Journal, The Charles River Review, and the Federal Reserve Bank's New England Economic Review. She lives in Branford, Connecticut with her husband, a golden retriever, and three step-children, and co-curates the Ordinary Evening Reading Series in New Haven.