EMILY AS WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE SPIRIT

The only wealthy people
I respect
have freed their horses.

EMILY AS A SCENE BETWEEN OUR LOVE

Illuminated
by the silence,
Emily

memorized
my catalog
of losses

without
promising
me the language

to follow
her system.
It’s okay.

Emily says,
it’s okay.
I believe her.

What gets lost
can stay lost
from me.

EMILY AS WHERE THE CURVE LEADS

If
it’s
Emily

it
doesn’t
matter.

Just
hold
on.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of eleven poetry collections, most recently Emily As Sometimes the Forest Wants the Fire, (June 2019, Harpoon Books). He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louis Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.