Kay Middleton’s most recent poem to appear here was Hurricane Sandy (December 2012).

These lines are old
By Kay Middleton

These lines are old, they repeat.
You had a woman once who paid
rent where she did not live
and cleaned where she did not live
and hung clothes in your closet.
She rested a toothbrush in a plastic cup
her head on your pillows.
She drove away in your mother’s car
while you leaned in the driveway, smoking.

You played games with ivory disks,
silver beans, shots of tequila.
No one was victorious, not really.
It was a stale mate.
She laughed often and cried.
How you hated those tears! Not enough
to bandage more than her thumb.
But you did this tenderly. Still, she bled.
And cried. And paid rent where she did not live.