by Melanie McCabe
All those years ago, the boy I loved
loved you—loved the fingers that pressed
desire into a piano and made it rise
in an afternoon so long we couldn’t see
an end to it, loved the swing of gold across
your hips, the owl gaze penciled in kohl.
I didn’t exist until you told me to him
like a story— a story he endured to have
your murmur in his ear each night, his hand
filled with a black receiver. Last summer
I sat with you on your deck in nearly-gone
light, the darkening like an invitation, giving us
space to say what needed saying: another has come
between us, has been with both of us, but chosen
you. And now, this July that spreads its
dappling and heat, its hawks and cicadas, its lick
of ozone and steam across a swaying field,
will be your last. And I am ashamed to survive
without you. In the welling storm, the grass
outside my window bends in a grief it did not
choose. To each moment I give a name: your last
thunder. Your last lightning. The final is
that becomes was. Like an ant in shadow, I dream
no one can see me here if I do not move, if I
hold my breath. Still the body beats unbidden.
I will be here to watch you go, our pulses ticking
to metronomes we had no hand in setting.
::
Melanie McCabe is the author of three collections of poems, most recently The Night Divers, as well as a memoir, His Other Life: Searching For My Father, His First Wife, and Tennessee Williams. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Georgia Review, The Threepenny Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and many other journals.
Image: Jim Witkowski
Image description: Photo of grey storm clouds over green shrubs and dark mountains the distance.
Psaltery & Lyre 