Beast in Me<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When I said I would take you swimming,
\nI meant we would drive out
\nto the reservation and I\u2019d say
\nit was too cold to take our clothes off.<\/p>\n
When I said I would take you camping,
\nI meant I would wait until you went
\naway to Spain, then go to the hills by myself.<\/p>\n
When I said \u201cYes, I will definitely be
\nat that show,\u201d I meant I would
\nshow up late, with a can of Rainier
\nin each of my pants pockets,
\nthen leave once they were empty.<\/p>\n
When I said we should maybe just
\nkeep this friendly, I meant
\nI wouldn\u2019t be calling you again.<\/p>\n
And when you reported all this
\nto my best friend, he agreed with you
\nI was unkind, and listened
\nwhile you complained
\ntwo hours on the bar bench.<\/p>\n
Honey, I was only a few blocks away,
\nputting the moves on someone new.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Beast in Me” is reprinted from Beasts and Violins (Red Hen Press, 2010)<\/p>\n
Caleb Barber<\/a> earned a BA from Western Washington University in English\/Creative Writing, and received an MFA in poetry from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, based off of Whidbey Island.\u00a0 He currently lives in Bellingham, WA, where he works at an aerospace machine shop. His poems have been most recently published in Rattle,<\/em> <\/a>Portland Review, Los Angeles Review<\/em>, Makeout Creek<\/em>, and New Orleans Review<\/em>, <\/em>as well as a feature in Poet Lore<\/em>. His first book, Beasts and Violins<\/em>,<\/a> is available from Red Hen Press. The title poem appeared in Best American Poetry 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>
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