Kelly R. Samuels
Post-Exertional Malaise
When I act as if I love
all whom I say I love,
it follows. It manifests
mid-afternoon sure as the sun
regularly and with no remorse
continues to fade the one plum-
colored chair through
the large front window.
I am found lying
on the couch, nursing an ache
particular to the left temple,
and only dimly recalling
some of the capitals of each
and every state in this wide
and varied country.
Understand I cannot see to
reply in gracious, kind ways
just yet, maybe never.
Nor always embrace
upon departing. I am only
now rising past dusk
to go in search of something
I am sure I lost. I have forgone
holiday cards. Do not wait
for word.
~
Mishearing After I Work the Women’s Throws
It was before noon, the sun
hazy from northern wildfires.
He walked and talked with
another coach, making quick
time on the path leading to
where the athletes would throw
themselves onto mats, landing
square even in rain or
snow, safe in the interior
space from fine particulate
matter. I wondered in what way
he would work their throats—
if gently, loosening the knots,
or how Othello had on
the Signet Classics cover:
clasped and determined, resistant
to delay or bargaining.
I was hopped up on caffeine,
distracted by the sonic tamping
of neighboring ground, thinking
of the disused building I had
just walked through, its stairwells
and doors serving
only one way.
He might have been
muttering, too, or not one
to enunciate. Do not ignore
the consonants, she would advise
all those late afternoons I recited
Frost poems in a near-empty school
for future competitions in larger cities—
the birch tree and the lone
branch letting him down ever so
gently. Listen, she’d say.
Kelly R. Samuels is the author of two poetry collections and six chapbooks—the most recent Oblivescence, a finalist for the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award (Red Sweater Press, 2024), and Sisi: Re: (Whittle Micro-Press, 2026.) She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee with work appearing or forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Blue Earth Review, Sixth Finch, Poetry Northwest, and The Glacier. She lives in the Upper Midwest.
