Tangle
Maude Larke
He said he was sorry
she only had us for friends.
She said she could tell he wanted her
only to have us as friends.
Our friends said they had heard him,
seen him burst into anger
at her, suddenly, sharply.
They didn't see the reason.
He said she had a way
of contradicting friends
that was violently passive-aggressive.
She could find nothing to say about his aggression.
Nor could I.
The friends split away
before they split up.
Listen to Maude read the poem here:
He said he was sorry
she only had us for friends.
She said she could tell he wanted her
only to have us as friends.
Our friends said they had heard him,
seen him burst into anger
at her, suddenly, sharply.
They didn't see the reason.
He said she had a way
of contradicting friends
that was violently passive-aggressive.
She could find nothing to say about his aggression.
Nor could I.
The friends split away
before they split up.
Listen to Maude read the poem here:
Working notes
The nature of relationships I have always found at once a driver of poetry and a complicator of that poetry. "Tangle" follows a bad relationship seen from the point of view of outsiders. It is the first time that I have tried that angle: usually I write about relationships, desire, passion, tenderness, from the inside.
About the author
Maude Larke has come back to her own writing after working in the American, English and French university systems, analyzing others’ texts and films. She has also returned to the classical music world as an ardent amateur, after fifteen years of piano and voice in her youth. Winner of the 2011 PhatSalmon Poetry Prize and the 2012 Swale Life Poetry Competition, she has been published in Oberon, Naugatuck River Review, Cyclamens and Swords, riverbabble, Doorknobs and BodyPaint, Mslexia, Cliterature, and Short, Fast, and Deadly, among others.