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POETRY
Now and Then
Patricia Connelly
00:00 / 00:47
Someone is circling now
languidly inside you
in a twist, ranging
neither here nor there
across the Midway
down the Lake Shore
up the I-80 of your mind.
But will her name
ever come back to you
scratch you where
it itches, remind you
she's not forgiven you?
There's the wind
and nothing else.
Yet the water bed is
drained out the window
the earring is stuck
between floorboards
the dishes left
unwashed in the sink.
Snow brightens the night.
Is it not enough
that the letters are tied
and boxed in the basement
that we look up
startled from the page
now and then, with
a name on our tongue?
Patricia is an MFA candidate at Columbia and lives in Brooklyn.
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