What they don’t tell you about the long haul

Beth Ruscio 

Then late one afternoon     exhausted from trying to find agreement     we just

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             take an impromptu nap     and for hours we rant in our sleep

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Childless     we argue     about the values 

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             toys taught us as kids     beside the point but    

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lack of the tangible has become accusation     poof  

   

                             the length of all our married years     minus

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                             what we have to show for it    

 

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for now     nothing is solid    

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                                                                      unmooring us 

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This chill     cured only by proximity    snuggling

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                                                                     slouching towards closeness     

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Awake      and all is stark again 

   

            hard on the eyes     dimming our prospects

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                                                                                                                       our senses

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In this low-ceilinged rented room     under the welcome mats and subfloor

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                                                                     countless secrets

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                                                                                                                               harden     in us     

Beth Ruscio, the daughter of actors, is part of a working class family of artists, writers and
actors living in L.A. She is a poet, an accomplished actress and a mentor at Otis College of
Art and Design. Her poetry has been Pushcart Prize nominated, and her work, including her
manuscripts, Speaking Parts and Hollywood Forever Cemetery have won finalist honors
for several prizes including The Wilder, The Sunken Garden, The Tupelo Quarterly, The
Ruth Stone and Two Sylvias. Recent work is published in Tupelo Quarterly, Cultural
Weekly, Cathexis Northwest Press, Malpais Review, In Posse Review, Spillway, California Journal of Poetics, upcoming in Tulane Review and in the anthologies Beyond The Lyric Moment, 1001 Nights,
Conducting A Life: Maria Irene Fornes and Dark Ink: Poetry Inspired by Horror.

Issue 11