Camp David
The kitchen floor awash in clothes
While flies library whisper around the sink.
There is a hole the size of everyone you loved.
All that remains is me,
The jester in your kingdom of disappointment.
Homeless clothes on the couch–
Newspapers, unread, cry near the door;
And the exchanges between us are short
Unfamiliar and formal.
This is the way we part now,
Like strangers finalizing
A treaty.
Marc Janssen lives in a house with a wife who likes him and a cat who loathes him. Regardless of that turmoil, his poetry can be found scattered around the world in places like Penumbra, Slant, Cirque Journal, Off the Coast and Poetry Salzburg. Janssen also coordinates the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, the annual Salem Poetry Festival, and was a 2020 nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate.
