By: Valerie Little
Timor mortis conturbat me But,
we’ll be forever this age 37 and
42
now that we’ve had the last
smile word
laugh embrace
kiss ravish
midnight morning
I still synthesize you into my
cityscape matins
headphones on before dawn
block early morning noise draw
attention inward
for eye has not seen ear
has not heard
save my eyes so I can recognize you are looking for me save
my ears so I can hear my name in your heart
some city some street some day
Honey lips part without sin, act as final anointing
saving us and our body breaks
as viaticum for another book of life endured
apart, like before, like next lifetime.
Yet on the floor of my room
I paper over those who caution me and
whisper my intercessions-
as it was in the beginning
is not now and never shall be-
I want you midnight morning
on summer’s sunlit grass at the
top of Mount Rainier
in the coastal forests of Canada.
You are the unfathomable burn of exploding stars
Callisto Enceladus Titania Triton Charon
Quiet cadence of urban darkness
Liminal visions of the sea floor.
Lux aeterna luceat nobis.
"When I wrote this piece, my first love and I briefly rekindled our relationship after fourteen years of no contact. The explosive power and complicated beauty of that experience was both heartbreaking and healing. We often discussed about our emotional and physical bond through images and words from the natural and spiritual world. I tried to capture some of that here, but from the end of the relationship looking back."
Valerie studied creative writing and music at Pennsylvania State University. She has been published in Kalliope, Apertures, Naming Hope, Sheila-Na-Gig, and in an upcoming 2019 poetry anthology by Duck Lake Books. Professionally, she is a violist and orchestra librarian with the Minnesota Orchestra.
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