Kelly-Anne Riess

You never know how your life would have gone if you made different choices. Things always only continue to go forward.

If I Gave Up
by Kelly-Anne Riess

I would have followed you

to Edmonton

found a job waitressing babysitting

even though I have three degrees

a temporary fix

while you finished school

near mountains where you climb

I wish I'd known you

when you didn't know what you wanted

then maybe you would've followed me to the Peg

I could never live in Manitoba you said

would feel bad if I gave up

anything for you

so you ended it

even so you couldn't stay away

visited me every summer

until she moved in

after graduation you went up north

how's that better than Winnipeg

you work 20 days on

fly down to her on days off

it could be me

"If I Gave Up" by Kelly-Anne Riess, from To End a Conversation. © Thistledown Press Ltd., 2008. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/10/11

Little Miss Electra

This is the first poem I ever had published in respected journal. Kind of clunky in some parts now that I look back on it, but I think it's still a worthwhile read.

Little Miss Electra
by Katie Kidder

I like old guys, because they are gray where I am dyed.
Old men amusing me with motown Otis after hours
supposing I don't know that with the lights down and our faces numb from a cheap shiraz,
I look like that little Miss Rah-Rah they never got to palm
in the green glow of their daddies' dashboards.

I like old guys, because they have dyed where I will gray.
Old men with thighs that forgot to age, bellies that remembered,
and hindsight like the long impregnable stare of a fighter pilot.
They have seen wars, read books about wars,
waged little private wars of their own
back when I was still a part of my father's fight.

I like old guys because they will lose the gray before I dye.
Old men with crows' feet around the eyes and tobacco in their sighs
they are not the dad I knew when I was five.
Not that one with the farmer's tan and the cocaine fog,
and not the one when I was twenty-three, too drunk to know the difference
between his girlfriend's name and mine.

I like old guys because they do not care about the gray.
Old men as flawless as my father was when I was twelve and he was sober,
when we discussed our dreams over stewed meat and moon pies.
What would Jung say? What would Freud think?
Perfect, beautiful old men who know who I'm looking for,
but still, they let me look.

Originally published at the Exquisite Corpse

Commitment

What better way to follow up a sweet love poem post than with a scathing indictment on commitment. (Which, happily, is not indicative of my current state of affairs.) This poem was written some years ago and was published originally in the Summer/Fall 2005 issue of So to Speak.

Happy reading.

Commitment

by Katie Kidder

I am home late from work again today.

The doorknob is greasy and unlocked.
All of the lights are on,
even the one over the oven that I never use.
Somewhere, water is running.

You are still here.

What have you been doing with my dog?
She’s running in circles.
There’s red velvet cake on her nose—
I was saving that cake for Saturday.

I can hear you upstairs.

You are either in my bed or on my computer.
“Hardcore.com isn’t what it looks like, honey.
I don’t know why Horny Housewives is highlighted.
I was looking at people with their eyes torn out ‘n stuff.”

You seem glad that I do not care either way.

Tonight while you are downstairs,
getting high, watching Return of the Jedi,
clipping your toenails on the coffee table,
opting not to bathe,

I will not ask you to leave.

I will crawl into the closet like a child,
where it is quiet and black
and envy the people on the Internet
with their eyes torn out.