Moving Away

Peter Cooley

This mirror has held my breath up
for the last time, the last touch
of April on my window mornings
has chilled to snow. Tomorrow
the floor will sway or level
under another's foot and steady
the dark will gather on me
in a warmer state, continue knitting
where it stopped.

        Then I can turn,
casting this house off finally,
my memory loosening each suture
inside my head.

        Then I can carry it
like any wound healed, superfluous
this life, the next, the next, the next.

University of Virginia Virginia Quarterly Review
5 Boar's Head Place
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University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903-3237
ISSN 2154-6932