for Meghan Markle
This poem is the press
This line the Daily Mail
This caesura – your father
These letters your letter
This stanza breaks
Like the shutter
Of a super telephoto lens
And this alliteration
Is afterthought arising
Around Archie – your agony
These metaphors
Are your brown eyes
Elegant script
Under saddened brows
Washed over
By flattering streams
This verse is free
Of meter and rhyme
Donning its fancy title
Like your cocktail hats
And this stanza resembles
The Pont de l’alma tunnel
Unlike your feather-soft heart
Of new wife and mother
This poem is not vulnerable
And will never hear your words
Thank you for asking
This poem is the press
Writing you without you
Breaking lines like stories
No one should read
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Candice Kelsey‘s work has appeared in such journals as Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, and North Dakota Quarterly. She was a finalist for Poetry Quarterly’s Rebecca Lard Award and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first full-length manuscript is forthcoming.
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