This is what We Did With Our Lives (David Wyatt)

In the house we waited for rain, for days, to end.
We talked and slept, the yellow of the forsythia
never dimming, the only road to and from the yard
muddy but passable, we didn’t underestimate
our ability to leave at any moment, in the light
of dream or under remarkable circumstances:
the toppling of the door or the evasion of guilt.
Parents were dead, other siblings nowhere within reach
of the rare roses our mother planted before we were born.
A Bible sat on the frosted-glass table by the front window—
“over our heads” for so long, and now I flipped pages
constantly, while who could call me blameless and upright?
Dear sister, young we were not, though you often held my hand
when lightning, at night, near the porch, raised the ground from nothing.

Ever After: A Paradelle (Kim Addonizio)

He lies on his side like a glass knocked over.
He lies on his side like a glass knocked over.
Only a little sweetness left, poor boy.
Only a little sweetness left, poor boy.
Only his little lies, a glass-like sweetness.
Poor he, a left boy knocked over on side.

Now she loves him more, but won't come back.
Now she loves him more, but won't come back.
In dreams she cries and paints his face like a girl's.
In dreams she cries and paints his face like a girl's.
A girl's more in dreams. She won't like him now,
but loves his face. Come back, she paints and cries.

It rains and falls dark on the house they lived in together.
It rains and falls dark on the house they lived in together.
She is alone there, afraid when it falls and breaks over the roof.
She is alone there, afraid when it falls and breaks over the roof.
It is on the roof. Rains and falls. The house afraid
when it lived alone. There she breaks and falls over in dark.

Now, in the dark, he dreams.
She is like a sweetness in his side; she loves him back.
But it paints more lies. Afraid, his face won't come together.
Little boy lived there on and on alone, only a girl's poor roof
knocked over. When it breaks, the house cries like they left.
She rains. And a glass falls and falls.