It has turned blue again, and clear

that time before night, before winter

when I am one more dark obstacle

auburn like brick or leaves,

mouth open to catch the snow when it comes.

It will.

I can tell by the weather.  The current of the air

the lack of substance.

 

it has taken some time to realize: I am not beautiful like the rain

have not the element: to play with light

to scatter.

The desert does not wait for me, has not ever

as I thought it did when I was a girl.

 

What were we thinking?

 

Spring comes and I have nothing to do with it.

Some people do, that girl full-bodied and dancing

throwing her arms —

you paid her little notice

silver on her ears, you said you didn’t like

such ornaments,

they caught whatever light was there, and left when she did

calling after you.

 

And you were left with me

(not there but here

in this autumn).

 

What I want to tell you:

that you came to me like she did.

In the winter, in the night time,

blew in with your navy coat, gray wool around your neck

with nothing but your hands

in your pockets, laughing

 

And I thought, this is it.  This is.

Ice in your hair, laden on your shoulders

nothing

but your hands

the one who sat beside me at the bar

as if I were home,

and not the simple warmth of coming in

from some half-rain outside.

 

They turned you down.

Three or four o’clock

too early in the morning

to give you what you wanted —

a drink, a laugh, a line

“Not enough time in the day for that one,” he said

when I asked him, why he did that, made you go.

And he was right:

 

we spend time like children

and find ourselves already, once again

awake and in the cold.

 

They have raised graves in New Orleans

a walk home past the river

and it is warm and rains dark

and green and thickening

you can breathe the rain

and it will break you up

from the inside out

and make you come and go with it.

 

For, now, I want that company,

 

my mouth, an auburn stone

awaiting what I know will come:

bare limbs and sleep

and living without the spring

by the blue and gray and iron light

to tell me to awake

 

##

by Shannon Nissa Bailey Powers

— from Shannon’s iBook