with an empathy so fatal #89
by Darren Demaree
my feet sink
into the swallowing
i’ve volunteered for
my shoulders
are too wide
for full empathy
i regret how often
i’ve pulled up
my own body
—
Darren Demaree’s poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including Hotel Amerika, Diode, North American Review, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review. He is the author of eleven poetry collections, most recently Emily As Sometimes the Forest Wants the Fire (June 2019, Harpoon Books.) He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. Darren is currently living and writing in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.