You Know Who You Are

Marilyn Robitaille

October 19, 2021 

You know who you are

The one who listened when you didn’t have to

Told me things would be all right even when they weren’t 

Especially then, when blood dripped from my pores

When no turning of the screw could fix my hurt

The taste of metal on my tongue, the smell of hair on fire

Remember when a plane fell from the sky

Or at least we thought it did

You held my hand and then my head and made me breathe again

You’ve filled the gaps, sewed the tears, mended holes

In head and heart, carried burdens of your own

Too many that I never knew their cost and weight

Awake at night in solitude, remembering green Vermont

Picnic at Frost’s farm, mint-juleps on the porch, poetry in the very air

All those books and late-night desperation singing

Medieval madrigals in cadence varying the music

A hunt for Christmas trees, a day so cold that birds froze

A rocket ship to Florida and sand fleas, sipping whiskey by a fire

Beached whales together, pregnant in a summer pool

Calling all New Yorkers, communing with your soul

You deserve the accolades, Valrhona chocolate, the best champagne

I can never say it loud enough for the universe to hear

I love you

Marilyn Robitaille teaches English at Tarleton State University, a Member of the Texas A & M System. As founder of Romar Press, an independent press, she facilitates and promotes the publication of good books on a wide variety of subjects. She co-edits Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and co-hosts the annual Langdon Review Weekend, a Texas arts and letters festival in Granbury, Texas. In addition to research on eighteenth-century women dramatists, her current interests include writing poetry; contributing a weekly travel column to Stephenville's Beneath the Surface News; and planning a Romar Press "Finding Your Muse" Writing Retreat 2022 in Santorini, Greece.