Words Written Near a Candle
If I could begin anything
I’d say stop asking forgiveness, especially
theirs which was always
the fault mentioned in your condition.
Nettles could be feathers
the moment they brush your
ankle. At the same time: floods, earthquakes,
the various slaveries
hunchbacked near the fence
to catch your glance.
What is it to say that among the hired boats
we carried our bodies well, cracked
jokes, left the gaps
in our lives and not
the page? This far to learn
the boat does not touch the water!
And if this is goodbye,
it is a light nowhere near believing
and I am happy
and it is all right to make a distance
of a nearness, to say, ‘Boat, I have left you
behind. Boat,
I am with you.’
Copyright Credit: Tess Gallagher, "Willingly" from Amplitude: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1987 by Tess Gallagher. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press. All rights reserved. www.graywolfpress.org
Source: Under Stars (Graywolf Press, 1978)