Better the Devil You Know

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 **couldn’t do it on 12 or 13** 


Poetry, I can’t
write out of the thick
uncomfortable of Suffering!
“You’re addicted to misery,”
I know she would say. 
If that is so, what of it, 
for now, let me indulge:

Beauty brings an ache
In its being ephemeral;
My children’s presences
glow with their ghosts;
the joys of here harmonize
with agony of there.

“I can’t talk about that
today, children, I am sorry.
I’m feeling a little down. We can
come back to it another time.”

“Will you tell me about the
devil then?” Nearly 8 asks.
I laugh: The memory
of what had felt like a
difficult conversation 
on our way here,
now a welcomed
reprieve on our 
way home. 

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