Beth
Woodcome
Abrupt
Emergency arrests summer and without a season
I am without night. A lack of it will not be grievous, but tremendous.Tomorrow I will be called back to listless sheep
and endless women neighbors,and I will go because someone says my mother
could die.
I understand that there will be sun, even day, but that I won’t see it.Leaving here, I will rename this sea and call
it gone.
There is a sense of hysteria with my vocabulary imploding so easily.Leaving here, where it never gets stormy or
dark,
even with the shades down, even with my hands over my eyes,I will not agree to any form of love. I can
not think of the possibilities
of a body next to me, a body in a bed, a body of infections.I will go home and be good to my aunts who are
crying.
I will be numbed, but carry what is left of tincturesof evening and strawberry, fit to heal
things quietly, fit to stand up near sirens.