John Blair

THIS IS HOW AFRAID WE ARE

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2023: VOL. 38.

Give us the pitchy whine the mind
of night that pulls at our nerves like a cat
pulling at kitchen blinds gently then
fish-on-a-hook wild when a claw gets snagged
give us our first real sin the naming
of the stars the animals the endless other sins
give us the way we can hear through a thousand
miles of phone line a silent kenotic moment
of self-emptying the way we can hear even through
the hurtling indifference of satellites all those
shining fragments the attention we can’t live without
as we run down this road of our making which
at midnight and midday shines with a scatter
of glass cat’s eyes glittering on a faceful
of pavement where someone met someone
else by perfect chance and left like starlight
like pain like the perfect forms of beginning
a blessing of endings of unplowed fields
of prisms making motion making ghosts
with light like sheets on lines like flakes
of pain like a planet so brave starting
as a mother does as a journey does
over again after we and all our
selfish love are gone.