It’s so dark walking East Hill Road
we no longer see each other,
what does it matter? outline
of trees crowding the sky, fog lowering,
our bodies urgent, fractious, reinvented.
Once, I would have married,
you say. Around us no light
enters. Surely the pinewood
has closed in on itself, a body
of water deepens. He was climbing
down from the roof
when he fell,
you say. Three stories.
Your hand makes a straight line
in the air, he just stopped feeling.
I remember the hidden meadow,
dense with fescue and steepleflower.
I wonder if he recognized you
after, if you stood there saying
who am I
to remind you? Feel something.
Where the road finishes, we turn
back, and for once I understand
the blind heart fumbling, the way
language uses us: elderberry, fox-
glove, the pink trumpets of morning
resounding in the airfield.
There’s no hurt you can’t unthink.
Around us a slow wind begins.
At least he won’t ever feel sadness,
you say, and I think I see you,
your arms swinging
at your sides, unable to choose
what you can live without.
Stacie Cassarino