Peacock Island

From the island
he saw the castle
 
and from the castle
he saw the island.
 
Some people live
this way—wife/
 
mistress/wife/mistress.
But this story isn’t
 
the one I’m telling.
From the island
 
he saw the castle
and that made him
 
distant from power
and from the castle
 
he saw the island
and that made him distant
 
from imagining
what power can do.
 
The story I’m telling is
the war coming.
 
How can you go from
island to castle to island
 
to castle and not give
birth to a war? No.
 
I still can’t explain it.

Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Kronovet. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 23, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.