Beautiful Poem

We discussed this poem in my class today. I was looking for a contemporary example of a poem that uses meter. This one is, more or less, in iambic pentameter, with a beautifully placed scattering of rhyme. I'm going to put Dubrow's poetry collection Stateside on my to-buy list.

Before the Deployment

by Jehanne Dubrow

He kisses me before he goes. While I, still dozing, half-asleep, laugh and rub my face against the sueded surface of the sheets, thinking it’s him I touch, his skin beneath my hands, my body curving in to meet his body there. I never hear him leave. But I believe he shuts the bedroom door, as though unsure if he should change his mind, pull off his boots, crawl beneath the blankets left behind, his hand a heat against my breast, our heart rates slowing into rest. Perhaps all good-byes should whisper like a piece of silk— and then the quick surprise of waking, alone except for the citrus ghost of his cologne.

© 2013, Academy of American Poets. All Rights Reserved.