After the Beginning, Before the End
By Deborah Brown
My life is in this story of love
that leaves me between this and that.
How can I know
what is on the other side
of this story until I walk
toward the edge?
A preposition locates you
in time or space. Someone
locates himself on the moon,
claims the moon opens his eyes
to something like hope.
The limbs of the birch grow
like parallel lines along the roof
and like someone's moon,
they are infused with whatever I wish—
collision, extremity,
boredom, endlessness.
It is after the beginning,
before the end,
and despite what I read,
hear and see,
it is after so much
and before the rest of it.
Copyright Credit: Deborah Brown, "After the Beginning, Before the End" from The Human Half. Copyright © 2019 by Deborah Brown. Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org.
Source: The Human Half (BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org, 2019)