Forty Years Later with two Old Testament Dudes
On Dewey Whitwell's Knee, I Consider My Second Amendment Rights
"Jan Worth published her great novel Nightblind herself (with iUniverse) and thank goodness she did. She worked on it for about thirty years she says in the Acknowledgements.
Worth’s book is splendid and delightful, wise and witty and rich. Twenty times better, say, than something like Eat, Pray, Love...." (Read the full review...)
Poems > Old Love Is Hard
Old love is hard, but also sweet.
Maple syrup surging fierce and rich from a craggy tree.
Your long leg bones have traveled far to
Intertwine with mine. Husband, you are my winter
chieftain, come at last from the hunt to the
Bed I make for you, kissing off your bitter frost.
Our love knows fear, real pain, and pills and sometimes tears,
Aches and waking up afraid, holding hands
in the somber hour; old restless souls, we wander
halls and rooms together, cling arm to arm, knowing
too much for sleep. This is it, we whisper, there is not enough.
When I kiss you in the dark, I know the moon
glinting through winter trees will be there after us,
Both of us gone to ash, the moon will still declare,
bold oracle through black branches just like tonight,
And I am sad and afraid and I don’t want to die.
But you are here now, in this moment, sweet familiarity
of your arms and chest secure, your heart’s lusty beat against mine.
We find our way together back to bed and
This is what we have: our bodies cleave,
Your taste all man and coursing life.
Moonlight, silver and cold through
orderly windows. This solid house.
and I am still alive with you and
I want to kiss you again and again. Your hand curves
onto my hip, and I settle into your hard-worked bones
saying with this seasoned flesh of mine, I will be with you
in our defiant diplomacy with the dark,
our bargains with the night.