Endpapers

Photo by Tahmid Munaz.

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012)

Endpapers

I

If the road’s a frayed ribbon strung through dunes
continually drifting over
if the night grew green as sun and moon
changed faces and the sea became
its own unlit unlikely sound
consider yourself lucky to have come
this far Consider yourself
a trombone blowing unheard
tones a bass string plucked or locked
down by a hand its face articulated
in shadow, pressed against
a chain-link fence Consider yourself
inside or outside, where-
ever you were when knotted steel
stopped you short You can’t flow through
as music or
as air

II

What holds what binds is breath is
primal vision in a cloud’s eye
is gauze around a wounded head
is bearing a downed comrade out beyond
the numerology of vital signs
into predictless space

III

The signature to a life requires
the search for a method
rejection of posturing
trust in the witnesses
a vial of invisible ink
a sheet of paper held steady
after the end-stroke
above a deciphering flame

You can also read Adrienne Rich’s poem from Going Back here.