Author: Elizabeth Maynard

What is luck but this:
rain to wash a dusty day
into the green sea

I'm wandering again
in that life I don't live
can never live

I don't fit neatly
failed too grandly
was lost too often

It's not the god of this world
who dismisses
but we who exhaust ourselves
by closing every opening we find

Each life is full of the difficult necessary
and the painful excess
I am brave enough to face the first
foolish enough for the second
and have met more than a few 
who flee what must be done
spin galaxies of the ridiculous
black holes of suffering
drinking down all the light

I mark your death with ink:
cerulean, ruby, night
my name scrawled across each page
a stranger now entwined
in your last day
a life unburied now burned

Whisper sweet somethings
leave nothings at the door
I welcome your warm words
from every side
It's time
at last this time

Would you marry him for his voice
rumbling mornings in your ear?
Even if it meant disappointment
silence in those other times
when you crave words
Even if it meant a cascade
of loneliness when you try
to carry all the rest of it yourself
not moments, but years
Even if

He told you he loved you
and kissed you goodbye
but now, sweetheart
he asks you to send money
from an ocean away
and the story unravels
until he is nothing
but your tender imagination

In this space between two sleeps
we pace, mutter to ourselves
fear all things
destined to disappear
when light breaks
roll back twisted linens
softened limbs
promise night this faithfulness:
we shall return

Love walks across the room to greet you
introduces himself
shakes your hand
and asks you to follow
this is, at last, a stranger
worth talking to

I make the calls
you never want to hear
pull you from sleep
or the remains of a good meal
to tell you of a life
unmendable
a turn irreversible:
this love, that friend
will not come again