November 3, 2007

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    It's strange, in our lives...how the ending of something, can take us back to the beginning.  The feelings that were there, the start of soemthing that became...something.

    This poem...bitter and sweet for me. And I love it now.  Like I loved it then.  Even though now... I live it.

     

    Study of Absences
    by Letitia Trent

    1.
    The burglars slit open Christmas gifts,
    impatient as children.     Appliances were ripped
    from the walls so hastily cords trailed
    from sockets with their wiry guts
    frayed out, plastic skins burst.
    I inspect the squares of grime where things once stood,
    the bugs and dust are collected like shadows
    cut loose from their substance.
    2.
    I hear my feet slapping solo
    on the cold linoleum. Coffee settles in the press. I can't drink
    it without you, the effort echoes old paths of movement; coffee
    to table to kitchen, hands from cutlery to your forehead,
    to your slick hairline, to your sticky eyelids. My body
    must learn new directions, break the old
    deference your absence renders unnecessary.
    I set a glass of milk down, and though alone,
    cross my ankles at the knee.
    I admit, you bent my bones into new angles,
    and I cannot stand to break
    the bad knits
    and take the itch
    of the body stitching
    them straight again.
    3.
    As you walk away I watch you receding,
    watch the dark nestle deep in your ribs and the dips
    in your shoulders, watch it clamber over your back
    and swathe your flesh like a sweater. Now
    you are lost in the dark of distance.

    All little movements echo the big ones.
    Time is the shadow clawing up your ribcage,
    it is static that blooms between us.
     
     
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