Skip to main content

Liz Every Day


ISSUE:  Winter 1999

Reassurance is seeing
this fig tree hoping for even greater intimacy
with the porch. Who’d notice
when the eye seemed lost to thought
and thought a fly in the dark?
Not I. Suddenly it comes
to consciousness this morning.
Spare the metaphor. Speak.
Speak as if mouthing the only story.

I would like to go back again
and find you floating in your white blouse
like the god described for us
walking at night in the cool of the garden,
bent over with your fingertips
lifting up a leaf. What is permissible,
Elizabeth? Must everyone run for cover
during the night of the soul?
The word I am trying to find for you is glory.

How slowly you perform
this ordinary chore of pouring
yourself out for me, a pitcher
tipped day after day into the dark
as if talking were moral
and listening the inclination to rejoice.
I know. And knowing see
myself on the threshold of
letting go in order to draw close.

0 Comments

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Recommended Reading