Poetry

Joanna Klink

It left in the wind, it returned in the air.

I opened wide my door to it.

I shuttered all the rooms to block out

sunlight. It left at midnight.

It seemed to me there were birds

in that dark. I locked all the exits—

it returned in the fissures, the errors,

the marooned sulking thoughts.

What in the meantime happened

was nothing. Requiring no company,

plummeted into its own blood-

blackness. We were careless. It left

at the green summer of dawn.

Pulled us from a dream—no one

heard it. It gave every reason,

declared itself broken, gathered into

a cracked leather satchel its alarm clock

and books. I have come to tell you

there are no new stars. If you tense

against me there is history—I open

my body to it. Everyone at times

gets too close. But when I backed

into that delirium, unearthed

its warm flesh—it left. It left

with the heat from the stones and even

the dusk felt oppressive.

But when I rooted into your chest

and slept in a blue curve by

your thigh it returned. Felt

something shift in your skull—

no one saw it. Every day we must

live this. If you vanish

you are still there. Smoke,

do your laundry—one still has dignity—

no one has noticed. What good

is a conversation in darkness that

isn't raw. I boxed it up,

lived two floors above it, said

just a few words. Requiring no company

we stayed there. Inseparable

loneliness. It left, it raged,

it wished to be quit of all pain—

who can blame it? I loved it—

I opened my body to it. It tore

through my cells, blistered my eyes—

I took it into my arms told it

please. I held it to my throat un-

abashed. You are here to explain this

in torrents—a rain that never comes.

It left in the wind, it spoke as it turned,

it carried me nowhere. Pulling me

close to its cheek. Even now as it goes.