Moment

When you turned to me--you in bed, still sleepwarm,
against

the pillows,
I across the room, skirt zipped, stockings on--
and you
asked, so quietly.




"Was that a
truthful answer?"




and outside our
narrow third-storey window
the Norway maple was poking odd thumbs into the
sky
and a skim milk early morning light leaked down the street,
down front
porch steps, around grimed collars of snowbanks.
and the oval Victorian
mirror of my dresser
reflected all that, with odd angles of rooflines,
gutters,
chimneys

jutting into its peripheral vision,


your question
cut
like a knife so sharpened it
slices clean and the surprised flesh
doesn't know for a moment
how to bleed,


and I
answered, after pause
in which the strangeness felt like a form of
love,


"No."

By: Rosanna Warren

I actually met the poet Warren. She was amiable however eccentric with her gestures and expressions. This poem intrigued me because of the awkard breaks and the setting she provided.

The opening lines set a scene that reminds me of lovers. "Was that a truthful answer?" When I read that line, my mind raced with how did the her other know she was lying. It made me judge her character and that of her other. Her character is willing to lie and her other is bold enough to confront her.

Which makes you then question what did her other ask her that made her lie. As well as what was her lie. To deflects to the scenery which in my opinion symbolizes the exposure that they will have of each other. To then explaining the feeling of the question. The numbness of the question that marked her mentally. To describing the awkardness to a feeling of love impling that they share an inmitation of love. To the finale of her response No. Surprising how a one word syllable can be so direct and cutting.

I would go more in depth however I like discussion better. Just thought I should share.