Poem by Another: “The Fight” by Kelly Cherry

I think, sometimes, of how you used to rage,
remember words you hurled at me like sticks
and stones—or like grenades. An explosion like sex,
at first, and later on, a cold dark rampage
that laid waste to the quiet country of my heart.
For days on end, I might as well have been
missing in action in a small Southeast Asian
territory. And you the lover of art,
of rationality! The pacifist!
Oh, you the one who never was missing or lost!
I held my hand in front of my then-young face
to keep away those words—that acid, that mace—
and still you seized my wrists and pulled me to you
to kiss or kill me. Which, I never knew.

I returned today from spending Christmas in Redstone and could not think of a subject for a haibun. So I’m giving you this poem, one of my favorites. I love it because I have known people like the [man] the narrator is addressing, but I also admire the fact that it’s a sonnet but doesn’t advertise that fact, nor does it dwell much on rhyme. In fact, it take 10 lines instead of 8 to describe the problem the poet hopes to solve, and 4 lines instead of 6 to resolve it. I hope you like it.