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Familiarity

by Darren Swift

Laying, still, spent, lovers' sweat stained;

seldom now.

He becomes numbers.

Once a month
twelve times a year
maybe twenty good years left...

two hundred and forty remain.



She nudges him,

hopes this month's first Friday
extends into a second round

three hundred is a good target
she whispers into his pubic hair...

03/31/2011

Posted on 03/31/2011
Copyright © 2025 Darren Swift

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Alison McKenzie on 03/31/11 at 01:46 PM

See? This is what I'm talk'n about...Just enough to make the reader feel "let in" on the way you look at things, but not so much that we can't fill in the blanks with our own perspective! Again, I LOVE it, but hate that it had to be written. (I'm not generally very good at separating a poetic work from a poetic play)

Posted by Jim Benz on 03/31/11 at 03:37 PM

There's a back story in this poem that's largely unspoken but strongly inferred, and it carries a huge amount of "true-to-life" emotional resonance. You've done a masterful, nuanced job of contextualizing the situation into a very effective and memorable poem.

Posted by Gabriel Ricard on 03/31/11 at 08:24 PM

That ending is certainly a whole lot of memorable. Some very strong imagery indeed.

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