strung from a thought arrived through the keyhole grasping
the hand of another
I will begin with my mouth
then live with antlers remembering the light inside, always to breathe this unforgetting
and his body shaped like a crabapple tree
or a mother raised by a wolf looking back at the mirror
and trying not to break anvils on the bottles of blame
in another life: smell of moss, stream water, depressions of dark orange rocks which trap tiny fish
the consequence of silence: a field beneath opening clouds
on that morning I woke to the sound of the blue jay and used a small silver key
some day we will all be gone from this place
now that the live oak has thrown down all its caramel-colored leaves, thought lives in the ear-shaped idea of this only
Copyright © 2015 by Sarah Messer. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 29, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.