Kelly Grace Thomas

Future Tense

The power’s been out for hours
now. We simmer wordless

in front of fire. Heated in the aftermath
of another argument. Let’s just see

what happens, you’d said. Asked me to wait.
Again. I echoed our ugly

odds. Repeated every diagnosis. We sit
silent. Childless.

Not holding one another,
but needing to be held.

Instead our bodies end
each fight

for us. And now—
how will this marriage survive?

So miserably
in love. Across the room, your eyes

are all autumn, warm and worn,
like the way a door

families its hinge. The cost
of anything is how long

you’ll wait. How long for the tree
to lose the green, the wine to leave

the glass, how long
for the lights

to come back
on.

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Kelly Grace Thomas, poet, writer, and coach, is the author of Future Tense (forthcoming from Alice James Books, 2026) and Boat Burned (YesYes Books, 2020). She is the winner of the Jane Underwood Poetry Prize and the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Sun, The Adroit Journal, 32 Poems, Los Angeles Review, Sixth Finch and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Randolph College. www.kellygracethomas.com