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We build these
into the dream-
house, holes drilled
into window sills,
so rainy days
drain out. No
dream’s complete
without looking
ahead, without
seeing ourselves
looking back
at who—
dreaming—
we’d been.
Copyright © 2018 Andrea Cohen. This poem originally appeared in Kenyon Review, November/December 2018. Used with permission of the author.
We funnel it between the stones.
What stones become is what
holds them together. A crushing
summer: white hydrangeas, in
dry winds, nod. In Adirondacks
we can’t fix, in a twilight beyond
repair, we recline, and an orange
tanager—what you asked
I drew the eraser
first because I knew
it better than I knew
myself and because
it had been around
the block before me
and because it would,
after having its way
with me, rub up against
everything I’d ever loved.
for Philip Levine