My Question is the Following
by Sarah Toomey
Could you picture yourself dying here?
The hills looking so
blue. No—
the mist on the hills
looking so hills-blue.
Come back. All of the bigger ferns are dying.
The sunlight is exhausted
on the full-flesh
canopies that summer fed
seed into. Somewhere in a barn
there is a nest of flint.
God’s there. She’s all
put together with thread.
A light breeze
blows her around.
She terrifies me.
That’s how— you and I.
And we were born.
The planar family
and the long, long moon.
The skin. The skin
around the face. The face.
Come back. Let a spider cross your arm
above the elbow.
We’re all still
newborn. You can see it
if you look. This
sludge black mass.
This tangle of cherries.
This is everything. This is
one stitch. Everything. A cold twinge. Here.
Looking in. Now
it’s your blue. Maybe
it has always been. My world
is not running out.
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