The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Ellen Steinbaum

THIS IS THE POEM I WILL NOT SHOW HIM

though he is an eager reader,

wants to love my words and is

quick with knowing comments, but

this is the poem about how

when we are cooking side by side

and rain is beating loud on the windows,

we turn the music up, or

how he laughs and pulls me to him,

talks to me in couple code, or turns the heat

up higher than he wants because

he knows I'm always cold, and how,

on one St. John morning, I saw him up early

in his robe, sprinkling sugar on the window ledge

so I could wake to see a row of bright bananaquits

feast in front of me before they flew away.