Clothing and weapons set aside, I am simply your thigh, and proof
that underneath the world lies
a warm pool of water overflowing
with drowned blue butterflies.
All these years,
clear up to here:
As you waited, I waited too.
When you were tired,
I lay down with you.
You never noticed,
but now you do. (
boy’s fingers whispering past the hem of your skirt—guess who?)
Guess who.
Sleeve of moony, vaporous voices. The dead ebbing as the living flowed.
The calm milked cows in a field of clover. The long
white fish in a bath. Cellular
shadow on the forest floor. Someone withdraws
a shining sword.
The naked man standing on the deck with his harpoon.
So much water lapping at a mindless shore. So
much spring stuffed into a pale
silk sack.
Or a club
tossed down among the flowers.
I am your memory
of it all, your life, in flesh and hours, statement
and tone, meat and weather
wrapped around a bone.
from Lilies WithoutFind it in the library
Copyright © 2007 Laura Kasischke
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.