This Sharpening

"Ellen Watson is an eloquent, passionate poet; tender, wildly inventive, with the wonder of childhood and a grown woman's comic sense. Watson's poetry is the real thing."-Robert Pinsky "I am stupid with awe of Ellen Dor? Watson. Reading her work does that to you, makes you a little drunk on the world, a little tipsy and stumble-tongued."-Claiborne Smith, "Austin Chronicle" Vivid, propulsive, and compelling, these poems map with unflinching attention the unraveling of a marriage and the persistence of longing, the pain of loss and the persistence of pleasure in motherhood and the stuff of everyday life. Whether indulging fantasies of revenge, reveling in a child's kisses, or deconstructing a first date in 25 years. "First Date In Twenty-Five Years" "Buttoning my sweater over the huge splotch of white wine splashed on to neutralize the coin" "of red dribbled earlier in my nerves, I sit down across the table from this man for the first time" "and find I've forgotten how to use a fork. Returning home, I set the story we might make" "beside the story I am making, then alternate the two like fitful sleep positions. To the first I give lots of room" "and no punctuation; from the second I subtract destruct, add self. Doze off feeling kissed. Morning" "proper finds me weeping into bathwater. I must turn into the one I've beenthreatening to become, faster."