Lia Purpura, Parasol Mushroom (detail), featured in AGNI 102
Breakup
Who will have the dog? And who the tree
the squirrels nested in?
Who will get the grass where the house
with the hip-roof sits?
—The 1920s house that came pre-cut
from Sears in a do-it-yourself kit
long before Sears and Roebuck split,
or the two of you met.
Who will be the one with the new address?
And how to divvy up the books?
When all is said and everything done,
the is and ts dotted and crossed and put to rest,
who will take the u, and who will have the s?
Faye George
The poems of Faye George have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, and Poetry’s ninetieth-year retrospective, The Poetry Anthology, 1912-2002. Her three published collections are _Märchenhaft, like a fairy tale _(Earthwinds Editons, 2008), Back Roads (Rock Village Publishing, 2003), and A Wound On Stone, the 2001 winner of the Perugia Press Prize. She has received the Arizona Poetry Society’s Memorial Award and the New England Poetry Club’s Gretchen Warren Award and Erika Mumford Prize. She lives in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. (updated 4/2010)