[ToC]

 

AFTERFEAST

Lauren Clark

 

 

Tonight am I witness to the moon rising a blue-orange topaz in the low eastern sky.
The specificity of this color alone proves
I am not wholly alone in this sight. Blue


often the last color to be noticed, linguistically                                                                                      
often the youngest color in a language, being so
often the majority of a given vista: sky, sea,
etc. The towels slap softly against one another
from the clothesline in the wind with a sound

like footsteps. As usual I believe someone is
coming up behind me from the tall grass
and fear, yet


there is no absolute aloneness on this island
and so it is for me to understand there is none
on any island, and so is it for me

in the white bathroom light
to shave away my entire incongruously red beard,
for the benefit of the goats shaking their bells
in the distance, in my direction, so often

I was here. I ate here.

 

 

 

 

 

__

[link]