beauty post

Passing Remark


I saw your mouth trailing off except one small leaf.
Scale, nuance & concentration as sufficient
as an ant, a long moan running down the bark
of a tree. You stood in my line of sight, so still you were
there, shifting like glass & its particulars, a seagull
creaking. I have doubts whether such things can be
dedicated. Your wrist of paper scraps in sunshine,
branches arriving like anthems. You demonstrated
cunning. You walked out of the frame.
You came close to me. You went away.
We were pulled closer in absence.
Everything turned into something else.
My arms in the rupture of air, a slope
of bone. I saw you take for granted the broken
branch, how you were almost nothing.
Strange tree. Ungainly love.
Then a wave was dragging something back
into the green sea. A remnant flock
of robins suddenly above. They didn't touch
down, you know, they took everything
with them.


-Juliet Patterson