A review by meganachdenklich
Couplets: A Love Story by Maggie Millner

challenging inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

“In retrospect, the shape of things looks more entropic — strewn salt-shards of glass —rhapsodic blurs of random light and scraps of songs I can't rightly call mine, call anyone's.”

One woman’s queer awakening, polyamory and its struggles, reflections on sex and intimacy, love. This story is told in verse and the writing is just exquisite. Some lines took my breath away and I am in envy of Millner’s ability to craft these incredible poems. They flow together so seamlessly and I reread many lines over and over. This book is truly one of a kind and will probably be something I’ll be returning to in the future. It also made me want to sit down and write as well as read more poetry again. 

 

Everyone had the same Ikea bed.

She tied my wrists to hers, above my head.

(She liked what she called clean lines, I would learn;

her major had been architecture.)

Sometimes when I lay there, waiting, bound or free,

I'd envision its assembly:

the tiny standard-issue wrench that torqued the socket of the bolt, drawing the particleboard

flush against the rails. The hundred screws.

The greasy crossbar with its queues 

of stapled slats. The wooden dowels,

which had seemed too large to fit their holes,

that gently shed forced in. The plastic pegs.

The vinyl footboard, trussed between the legs.