AND INSECT SHELLS / image by Amalie Flynn

Emily as There is a Prison

Summer is full of us
& the weeds, gravel
& insect shells

are as much intimacy
as our intimacy. Want
& time, paths through

heat take sanity first
& Emily won’t get out
of bed, won’t invite

me into bed. When
nothing arches, everything
becomes arch, even

metaphors need action
or all they can do is strain
for a slight collapse.

Darren Demaree

Darren C. Demaree is the author of twenty-three poetry collections, most recently “So Much More”, (Small Harbor Publishing, November 2024). He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently working in the Columbus Metropolitan Library system.