Monday Poems: "Forgiveness" - Katrina Roberts

How does water do it? Always smoothing back over
after ruffled landings, explosion of drops in its face

wears for mere moments before recomposing itself
when what burns in me burns in me ... longer

than I care to admit. I shelter the grudge, build
a rustic cabin for it in my chest, pound rusty nails

in to anchor a porch where I sit glaring for hours
usually wishing I could simply take a shower

and rejoin my husband for drinks up at the civilized
house. God, what's with me? My children's eyes

search my face for signs of what they've done
wrong and I want to hold them, crying: Nothing,

you've done nothing but everything right. Often
I can't even remember what kindled our fight.

* * * *

Katrina Roberts, a graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is a Paul Garrett Fellow and the Mina Schwabacher Associate Professor of English & the Humanities at Whitman College, where she directs the Visiting Writers Reading Series. "Forgiveness" is from her third collection, Friendly Fire, published in 2008 by Lost Horse Press.