Until the file grew thick.
Until the pile of books lay dusty
beneath our wooden bed.  Until
there were scraps, casings, broken
glass, until the paper bag went soft
from being opened, creases
deep with habit.  Peaks
on a graph, we spiked, we fell
across the span: trial, error,
trial, ragged as a blanket pulled
by its edge too many times.
We thought of giving up.  We kept
the yellow copy for our records, garish
as the lesser Alps, silhouetted by lightning.

Robin Pelzman

Robin Pelzman’s poems have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Salamander, and The Comstock Review, among others; her poem, “Lunar Eclipse, Obscured by Snow” won 2nd prize in the 2004 Friends of Acadia Poetry Prize Competition.   Her work appears in the anthology, Mercy of Tides: Poems for a Beach House, from Salt Marsh Pottery Press.  She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with her husband and son.