Krystal Languell
from Middlemarch Poems
JULY 21st
- no one else died and the kids got
- married like they wanted to after
- finally admitting they felt love in
- each other’s company all only once
- she set aside her misery having slept
- on the floor in her gown sobbing
- returned to her rival to still set right
- the matter of debts and rumors which
- seemed to her total injustice she spoke
- for the doctor volunteered to meddle
- in repair to his reputation as an honest
- man and true even her solutions work
- every time they benefit others such was
- her religion in practical terms despite
- her perception that her own lover held
- this wife’s hands to his mouth and pulled
- away in shame when she entered letter in
- her hand to explain how she’d fix some
- element of their ruin dropped the letter on
- the desk and walked out to sob at home
- all her interest faded away and yet plot had
- her return to finish her favor and unfold
- of consequences led to epilogue marriage
- she did give up all the land to be with him
- the formerly idle painter the spurned heir
KRYSTAL LANGUELL is originally from Indiana. She is the author of two books, Call the Catastrophists (BlazeVox) and Gray Market (1913 Press), and five chapbooks. In 2013, she was awarded a Poetry Project Emerge-Surface- Be fellowship and, in 2014-15, completed a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council workspace residency. Since 2010, she has helped coordinate the activities of Belladonna* Collaborative while publishing the feminist poetry journal Bone Bouquet and teaching in the Department of Humanities & Media Studies at Pratt Institute. New work is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and Fence.