I stream consciousness,
withhold emotion,
nest inside myself. I shelve
a fleeting thought, manifest
an echo. I know
your secrets, hear as a handcupped
ear. I keep you
from the point:
I am the life of the poet
(b. 1986, whose life will end)
when I am unified.
Already, I closed around
her father. I was the sound
of his final word,
a telephone wave, transmitted
to her. I was the hole
in the ground.
The stone on his grave.
The mourner’s yarmulke,
the mouth
of her grief, the shape
of his face, the cleft
on his chin, how she
cleaved to him.
The space inside which
she waits
and waits.
from Poetry Northwest 09.2 Winter & Spring 2015More by Callie Siskel from the library
Copyright © Callie Siskel
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.