As in Marriage

by Joseph Hardy

The room where I write suspends 
a floor above my wife’s kitchen. 

Joists bump up the carpet which sags a bit
like wings around them. 

Think of a kite sinking
without a breeze to lift

our years together a tail of rags
that straightens

a string wound round a spool
that pulls against the wind 

in our disputes
of who it is that flies.

Joseph Hardy, a reformed human resource consultant, lives with his wife in Nashville, Tennessee. His work has been published in: Appalachian Review, Cold Mountain Review, Inlandia, Plainsongs, and Poet Loreamong others. He is the author of two books of poetry, “The Only Light Coming In” and “Becoming Sky,” through Bambaz Press Los Angeles, and a picture book, “At the Reading of the Will—And a Boy’s Life Thereafter,” IngramSpark.