darren c. demaree / two poems

Emily As A Cult

My whole

dappled deal with Emily

is much less than truth consumed

when I please. After all, I’m a lattice-maker

when the world needs ladders. I’m ready

to stay here. History will not know my name,

but it might whisper, know- ingly, hers.

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Emily As The River Climbs The Tree

They can’t all be red roads. The world is too quick- footed to grant generations of the farm a survivor’s pass. I wanted to be nobody’s answer. I wanted to be Emily’s dog. I offered a bloom to the man- made lakes of Ohio. They did nothing. They waited for the ocean. I tell you the ocean is coming. I tell you the river is taking what it can. There are no more seasons. I bark at nothing. Emily saunters into view & I drown in reverence. Emily saunters into view & I count the rings of this world.

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Darren C. Demaree is the author of nineteen poetry collections, most recently neverwell (Harbor Editions, June 2023). He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal.He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.