I am the man who cried out and knew,
that first day, I would stay with you,
that even my anger never stood a chance.
You were water rinsing crusted blood
from the stone altar where a chieftain
held a young boy’s heart up to the sun.
I knew I loved you, and I said so then.
But how I love you now makes that a lie.
Click here to read Richard Hoffman on the origin of the poem.
Image: “Seeing Red” by Richard Greene, licensed under CC 2.0
Richard Hoffman has published four volumes of poetry, Without Paradise; Gold Star Road, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Sheila Motton Award from The New England Poetry Club; Emblem; and his latest collection Noon until Night, winner of the 2018 Massachusetts Book Award for poetry. His new collection Same War is due in spring 2023 from Lily Poetry Review Books. His other work includes the celebrated Half the House: a Memoir, published in a 20th Anniversary Edition in 2015 with an introduction by Louise DeSalvo, the 2014 memoir Love & Fury, and the story collection Interference and Other Stories. He is nonfiction editor of Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices.
Latest posts by Richard Hoffman (see all)
- Cold Requiem - November 30, 2021
- A Love Song - June 2, 2020
- Horizon - May 12, 2019