Otherwise, what of empathy,
or any way to get there: upriver,
and then what? Leaves, or
the burst and fall of them,
or just the stripped-by-now
branches—comes to all
the same: false witness,
a smell like licorice, stolen
seawater as it begins to turn,
whatever boy stumbles
lost inside the man
flickering almost back, chance
when it still lies smoldering,
but nowhere a wind yet,
nothing stirs, everything
could happen. . . . Easily,
lazily, I sway. You were right,
I think; I was wrong:
acceptance as the too-long-
missing counterweight
to the staggered weightlessness
of sorrow, regret—the old
angers too? Why not? Ravens,
horses; another barn on fire—
it used to feel that lonely.
Impenetrable, the logic
by which I mistook your hand
in the night, last night, for mine.
Already have an account? Log in
Join KR for even more to read.
