I have done all that was asked of me:
driven the canyon to its view
bottled the wind
so the rose can grow.
It is dusk and I tire of these tasks
of preparing, plating a meal:
silver from the sky,
gold from the field.
So we eat and sit in static.
The outlines of deer pulsate,
expel the dust
they’ve long held onto.
We watch and wait for the other side
to become our side, for the porch
to be annexed by the cages
of a thousand ribs.
Ready are our eyes, which are limits,
ready are our boxes of tongue.
Ready are our hands
and their peninsular children,
ready are our hearts and lungs.
We see the night
for what it really is, a house
for our bodies
our bodies houses for bats.
We pass the time
time passes by
and it goes on like this
until rings bind us, until morning
is a pin poking up from the soil.
It’s what we’ve wanted all along,
wanted but couldn’t ask for, our words
the words of those who have
given up.
Listen:
Christopher Kondrich is the author of Contrapuntal, published in the Free Verse Editions poetry series by Parlor Press. New poems appear or are forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Boston Review, Jerry, The Paris-American, and Washington Square. He recently won The Paris-American Reading Series Contest.
