Francine Sterle

Issue #
5
September 7, 2014

The Way Back

A syrupy rope of honeysuckle

           hangs

                           indecently over my head

             desire

without             a hidden           shadow

So naked a moment––then

ragged scraps of clouds

             a leaf-streaked street

 .                          the sky salted with stars

Not the end

             but ending

The moon officiates . . .

How long it’s taken to find a way back

Between near and far––

           inexplicabilis

                      inextricabilis––

it’s been a riddle

             traversed in the dark

                          *

After the cave tunnel

            the yawning               unseen chasm

                                after the space

                            fracture cleared inside of
the forbidden terrain               the uncharted center

             after the linear path

                         the circular pattern

               after the grim, private ritual of death

                        the compass broken                     the needle static

after the rhythmic order of it all

             after grief became a bird        thieving the air

dropping its seed                     so that the tree would thrive

                            after all of this                after seeing the crescent moon

               formed by the bull’s horns before me

when another door opened

                         how willingly I walked through it

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