<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Affection<\/strong><\/p>\n Why do I feel guilt when you say I want to get close, but my back hurts?<\/p>\n Yesterday on our walk I saw a fox turn his tail toward me, the way we separate and go for the door opening on another.<\/p>\n I cannot conceive your down will stay like growing The disease has no beginning, no end. Thanksgiving \u2212 you pace over the stove.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Friday: the Pillbox groans with seven days. Spinning out laughter amid the clime of thoughts gone numbly \u2212 Critics scrape their shoes and dance. My feet on the floor of my study, my pen streaks. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shelby Stephenson<\/strong>‘s Family Matters:\u00a0 Homage to July, the Slave Girl<\/em> won the 2008 Bellday Poetry Prize, Allen Grossman, judge.\u00a0 Retired from the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, Stephenson served for 32 years\u00a0 as editor of the international literary journal Pembroke Magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note: ‘Affection’ is taken from an as yet unpublished, full-length volume called Nin’s Poem:\u00a0 A Bipolar Memoir.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Affection Why do I feel guilt when you say I want to get close, but my back hurts? Yesterday on our walk I saw a fox turn his tail toward me, the leaves parting for his body. I kept thinking: the fox is my persistence. I know the Fate he feels \u2212 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4407,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405\/revisions\/4407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe leaves parting for his body. I kept thinking: the fox is my persistence.
\nI know the Fate he feels \u2212 the roads, the roams,<\/p>\n
\nthings November beheads and tucks into folds, until January hails New
\nand we get out our instruments and take the road.<\/p>\n
\nIt goes away without any attention.
\nIt\u2019s a bear that hibernates \u2212 then comes back.<\/p>\n
\nShoot! I took Monday\u2019s instead of Friday\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\nyou in your walking shoes,
\nyour blue, pale jacket ballooning,
\nyour doctors all playing horns and tambourines.
\nMinstrels in black face and white \u2212
\nand you \u2212 sing above your ukulele\u2019s frail,
\nme, holding my voice.<\/p>\n
\nEditors shred their slips.<\/p>\n
\nI cannot leave these fields so wide, the rows long and short, planted and unplanted.
\nThe song\u2019s already sung, the poem\u2019s been written a long time \u2212
\nall that and more I hold onto, waiting for you.<\/p>\n