Carolyn Srygley-Moore

SUMMER 1984

The anesthesia did not work, there was no way to tell them.
Beyond the glaring hospital blinds, a lunar
Eclipse. In such a condition
I walked Baltimore alleys past midnights, looking for you
Through windows parted like mouths. I remembered
 
Your hands. Or the way you’d call up the staircase
Hidden within my body sweet dreams. Thus
I stepped in the same bathwater twice and found it
At least similar. The earth reeked of thunder and sweat
And sex. Against white cliffs of the abandoned
 
Buildings, the black machines silhouetted, I was not even
A cut of construction paper. Fleeing
Myself, a creature I had outlasted, I got lost
Sometimes, amidst the curses of toil and pain and death;
My pupil flashed like a cat’s, sliver of almond.
 
Lyre clenched in my arms I said the question over and over
Until you in flesh were summoned, telling me
Birth and being and death don’t occur
On your plane of comprehension; thus I considered
All the songs concerning the end of the world, I was
 
Urged to disbelieve the prophets and all their trappings.
All I ever wanted was to know if you were happy;
I am presently afraid, I cannot remember your face
As it was then or as it is, now, a footbridge splintered
By wind. I remember your hands. 

Carolyn Srygley-Moore has been published by The Antioch Review, The Pennsylvania Review, and other journals. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars, and has won awards for her poetry. She currently resides in upstate New York with her husband and daughter.