Lisa Cole
For Adam
This is how it is: I think of us making love all the time now.
I think of your face, bright and white like the moon above me. And
I am stretched like a chord, like a wing, but only one now—half a wing.
You are on another plane and I can't fly and
how many words will it take for me to reach you again?
And is it really you I am trying to reach? Or is it the version of
me that only you were able to decipher, the code—the Morse code—
clicking in my brain and my heart my hands,
my legs and my arms
when you would enter me. And
there we are again—making love.
Didn't we say that we were making love
even when our bodies were not
One—not a full flying, soaring bird—sailing?
I hear the rain and I think there is no better sound.
But then I remember your voice resounding
and all I hear, or feel, or see, or touch, is a wisp
of memory. I can not pin it down. I am deaf.
I heard a poem once
where the poet set two lovers on train tracks
making love. And they could not hear
the train coming straight for them. And I think that is us:
All of our time was collapsing under the weight of my breath
trying to breathe for two. Because you are dead—
on this timeless plane where everything and nothing stays the same.
But my breath, my one wing—half a wing
was not enough to keep you. I borrowed you
but you gave yourself freely during the borrowing—
a book whose author did not finish writing you.
And this is how it is: I miss you.
I try to speak to you when you enter my dreams.
So can you hear me when I call for you—a bird song,
my one wing—half a wing—flapping?
But now I want to be deaf. Now, my voice is an ambulance.
Now, I am a siren calling for you.
©2009 by Lisa Cole
