Rummy Park, 33
(Down to This)

Rebecca Lu Kiernan

It comes down to this,
Periwinkle willows bowed in prayer,
A milky emerald mirage of ocean,
Honeysuckle air and sodium light,
A cotton candy pink sunset
Bleeding into sugar white sands
Of an abandoned patch of beach
Where you first reached for my hand.

I was alive.
Now I am so terribly much more.

How should I speak
So as not to alarm you?
In the voice you play in your dreams?
(It’s more you than me.)
How can I appear
As if I have not been
This entire year
Walking through your slumped
Silhouette
In your mind’s red carpet Valentino dress?
Showing you
(You know you’ve seen it)
The way home.