Everything is made of shapes made of loops and lines Mother said and my life began to unravel the string of the world running out of my pencil she taught me to hold on fingers’ pressure against wood could blur lead to shadow show the slow darkening a candle’s flicker making strange angles of her face she said it all fades is lost to the horizon she snuffed the flame and I was falling I tried to slide inside my letters p’s open window the low doorway of an h but how could I know words wouldn’t hold me how could I know they close so tight?
Copyright © 2019 Matthew Thorburn. This poem originally appeared in Poetry Northwest, Winter & Spring 2019. Used with permission of the author.