I remember the first time I heard this poem. It was two years ago in my Creative Writing class, and from the United States of Poetry video cassette. I don’t believe it was a DVD or anything, since my prof was technological disinclined.

It was the first time I was exposed to spoken poetry. It primed me a few months later for my first real experience of spoken word, which I’ll talk about in a later post. I was drawn to this poem because it so clearly articulated the confusion that I was going through. It said everything I was unable to say.

I Am on My Way to Oklahoma to Bury the Man I Nearly Left My Husband For,
Sandra Cisneros

Your name doesn’t matter.
I loved you.
We loved.
The years

I waited
by the river for your pickup
truck to find me. Footprints
scattered in the yellow sand.
Husband, mother
in law, kids wondering
where I’d gone.

You wouldn’t
the years I begged. Would
the years I wouldn’t. Only
one of us had sense at a time.

I won’t see you again.
I guess life presents you
choices and you choose. Smarter
over the years. Oh smarter.
The sensible thing smarting
over the years, the sensible
thing to excess, I guess.

My life deed I have
done to artistic extreme I
drag you with me. Must wake
early. Ride north tomorrow.
Send you off. Are you fine?
I think of you often, friend,
and fondly.