Again and Again

Lindsey Warren

What to know of the face,

the different face, the face that has moved on,

what to know of the fissure in the memory,

and the mysteries left,

and the skeleton that sings for itself, and behind the throat

is a world of waterweeds and voices, it is an endless salvation there,

and the sea brought on by a desire for forgiveness looks at its beginning

so the waves choose their colors,

they let themselves see across your face

that is is raining, always raining,

a cloud flees across your bedclothes, even winter

spreads like a light,

the cold star left on has the body of a chorus

and is blue like your eyebrow, you once

climbed into that blue and made a grammar for your life.

I had loved the house the hours built, the rooms

teeming with your feelings, the wings of night there

still pink after my sleep, and you a certain changing iridescence

come on even during the earth’s command, even during

the owl feathers for your neck. You are an

everywhere. You seep and are found. You even

survive the wind.

Lindsey Warren is a graduate of Cornell University’s MFA program.  She has been published in Rabid Oak, Josephine Quarterly, American Literary Review and Hobart, among others. Her poetry manuscript Unfinished Child is out from Spuyten Duyvil, and her second entitled Archangel & the Overlooked is forthcoming. The first chapter from her novel-in-progress will be published by Litbreak Magazine in September.