We will count on these walls
to whisper
our resumes
to the strangers who take up
the work of these rooms,
forwarding them
past dust.
Our purpose shared,
suspended in trust
to a poem
that told us a long love
is willed.
Believing such
we are bound to exit
flattered
by our design,
unmindful that this thing
has also always
been lying
in wait,
a thing
in itself, bossy and brutish
that has thrived in spite of
sabotage chapters
occasional giddy
neglect.
A volition
apart
that exceeds
dull need
a self-interweaving
imperative be mine
that will whisper
our love
past dust.
Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Moxley. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 5, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.