Anne Graue

Princess of Pain

~for Jahan Malek Khatun (1324-1393)

A Persian princess’s family, murdered, brought the pain
and she continued writing through her grief and pain.

She longed for her creativity to help her blossom
into another version of herself, one without so much pain.

Her verse transported her feelings, showed her crystals
pregnant with meaning and energy, relief from pain.

The abyss was familiar to her, waiting on the other side of her door
promising a nothingness but no end to unendurable pain.

In fact, the emptiness promised more of the same
and never pretended to be anything but her recognizable pain.

She removed spoons from a drawer one by one
replacing them with Grace and teardrops shed in pain.

I Got You Babe

I wore out one of the first Sonny & Cher albums, Babe,
with deep needle grooves in I Got You Babe.

At the end of every show, holding their son Chaz,
they sang as if they were there alone, telling him, we’re here Babe.

I soon tired of the song, listening to the skips that pointed
to my adolescent pining, my obsession with I Got You Babe.

My sisters mocked my fanatic fandom, my scrapbook of photos,
articles, and lyrics saved long after they recorded, I Got You Babe.

Part of the culture, it showed up long after Sonny’s death, and after
Gregg Allman’s, who sang on their show a song much raunchier than I Got You Babe.

Years after their split, their careers and love lives splayed open,
late night Letterman made Sonny & Cher sing I Got You Babe.

Iconic as the couple, it shows up at regular intervals, and inevitably
every morning the clock radio in Groundhog Day plays I Got You Babe.

I wonder if Cher finds herself humming it absentmindedly as she goes
through her days. Who’s to know? Save her and those she’s called Babe.

Anne Graue (she/her) is the author of Full and Plum-Colored Velvet, (Woodley Press) and Fig Tree in Winter (Dancing Girl Press). Her work has appeared in Gargoyle, Verse Daily, Poet Lore, Kenyon Review, and Glass Poetry Journal. She is a poetry editor for The Westchester Review and lives in Mahopac, New York.