You will be here again. Your eyes
closed in brightening light from
a window, open in winter. Magenta
blooms lidded, your forehead held
by a shoulder put forward for your
tremble. Blue now, a sea you recall
and the wind rushes open the naked hands
of young aspens and you see suddenly
how you will be here again, though
not like this, not this unfurl welling
of you at the mercy of the generous
and outlasting. You say all of what
can be said of I’m sorry these are not
the right words, I cannot explain and—
Oh how I love you. The unfastening of
a tree in winter, how it drops its arms
against a limp body. And you fall again
into other centuries when all the weighty
wishes of women closed themselves
into solemn books of cannot-be’s.
Jessica Rigney is a poet, filmmaker, and photographer. Her letterpress poetry broadsides, À La Brütt and Grass Began are both available at Wolverine Farm Publishing in Fort Collins. Her chapbook, Entre Nous, was published by Boar Hog Press in early 2017. She was a 2016 quarterfinalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry.
