Seventh Sunday
Since you were not Hume’s sunrise
I watch the late-May moonrise alone
and a nicotine trance assures me
that summer is coming, and the arrival
of painted toenails; that at last
I truly understand aubades
and James Stewart’s vacant hospital gaze
after his wits have vanished with his love;
that the transmigration of bruises
from skin to spirit brings about
such splendid depths of character
you’ll drop a dime and never hear a sound.
Clouds race across the moon’s pale face.
I have character to spare, it is
no comfort; I will write us down,
making nothing happen, it won’t repair
this ache of failed induction, these eye
that live for sunlight, though the sky stays dark.
Rachel Wetzsteon, “Seventh Sunday” from Sakura Park. Copyright © 2006 by Rachel Wetzsteon. Reprinted by permission of Persea Books.
Source:
Sakura Park
(Persea Books, 2006)
