look

Sorrow, with Some Eye Contact

Mostly you just disappear. When I don't see you dead

I know you're alive, I can see you by the clothes you're wearing,

by your boot print on the unloved grass.

We make an ugly street ugly, a giant room stripped,

its high wood beams and bed big enough for six of me

or three of us. You swear we have no roof.

One morning we counted chickens

and ate their eggs for breakfast. We played with hats.

I think I thought your weight was on me,

but you were vanishing, even as you sculpted us from clay.

Someone has shown up for me, I sense a chariot,

the sky is preparing to rain on everything.

We forgot to put the doves away.

I can barely see you. I think someone has shown up for me,

can you see headlights? Hear footsteps?

Some remember my snatching an outstretched hand.

And in a room of rafters you do what must be done,

under moonlight, though it's days before you are found,

chickens gone, doves in trees, my bust smashed and mouth

punched in so its grin runs into an eye, winking.

LYNN MELNICK