IMG_1841
Art by Moriah M. Mylod

When we started I thought 

                    —so that’s the way light tastes. 

I called light—future. 

 

            Now I feel its loss in my teeth, jaw, hands.  

My hair still smells like your hair.

I can’t think of my own body

                without thinking of yours, 

 

without thinking of swimming pools lit 

            by waves of lightning so close I can taste

their ozone and how there was a time when that taste was hope. 

 

How many dawns did I greet hoping 

            you had not stopped breathing in your sleep

 

or whatever we should call the blear

                between high and not high?

 

My love for you kept me awake—

       what little I knew then—

          watching over you, thinking that 

                if you died I would want to die too. 

 

I tried to love you like this: all or nothing. 

How many times did I shake you back to me? Do you remember 

 

what I said? I said

    here is my only life—take it. 

 

I mean if you’re breathing, stay with me. 

        I mean if you’re not

                stay with me. 

 

            If your hand is in my hair, leave it. 

If you are this hurt, 

            let it hurt. I can take it. Don’t ever

be done with me.

 

 

 

Jill Mceldowney is the author of the chapbook “Airs Above Ground” (Finishing Line Press).
She is a founder and editor of Madhouse Press. Her previously published work can be found in journals such a Prairie Schooner, Vinyl, Muzzle, Whiskey Island and other notable publications.