Darren C. Demaree
Neverwell #25
I have almost eight years
of sober thoughts
& all of them
curve my hips back
to the past where I was
a body in a basement
that refused to rise
because of a trauma
I could not think
to frame my mouth
around. That partial
guilt gives me what now?
All the names that are
tattooed on my body
have propped me up
for years, so maybe nobody
put me in that basement.
Maybe it was the safest
place to be a drunk?
I am the whole village fed
for weeks by this
temporary belief
& I confess, actual hunger
has to started to braid me.
Darren C. Demaree reads “Neverwell #25”
Darren C. Demaree is the author of sixteen poetry collections, most recently “a child walks in the dark”, (Harbor Editions, November 2021). He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.