By Clare Flanagan
Forgive me my inaccuracies please it’s only that
I haven’t written about this (let alone felt it) in so long &
I was not expecting it now. I tend
to anticipate the worst such that
I’m never disappointed but then
when nothing changes I keep my chin above water when
the cloudbanks break my toes find
the cool silt floor of the lake and when you
appeared before me I began
to know the depth of all
I’m swimming in. You
in five fathomless shades of black, you
in glasses and low-pulled hats, you far
and incomprehensible shade of
that thing I felt last time the days lengthened
in this way – are you all that
in a different shape,
another epinephrine specter, tall crooked
dance partner for full-moon music? We,
tactless, swimming unsteady circles
around the kitchen – do you see
how I scour cast-iron, chop garlic
and day-old onions? What about
the bruise above
my collarbone, or how I watch, foolish
for you, halfway up the stairs? Let me tell you
what I’ve done and seen
for a minute. I can recite to you
the alphabet of my loneliness, the barefoot
pre-dawn soliloquy, high heels
in one hand, dislocation
in the empty other. Let me tell you all the words
I know for losing –
the one for locked-up quadriceps, salt heart surpassed
on the backstretch, the one
for the dark drive home, the resonant cold, the one
for at least now you know
how it feels, it’s done, spools
of interstate tangled on the floor
between you, but at least you know
what it’s like to be in love. Forgive me
again – I don’t have
a term for that. But if that word
could ever become flesh, it might
be you –
dwelling among us, close and bright
as the moon that forgets waning, you
who existed before me, voice broad and
eyes blue, with whom
I now share a roof, by some
holy accident. I don’t know
who to thank for this, how
to give shape to this yearning. Take
my hand again. Testify, cry out, tell me
stories in your dialect –
speak until I know
your very language.