In a Bright

by Cecelia Hagen

i
In a bright
                             in a field

the breath held
                                                          the clouds scaddled

almost translucent
                almost something
                you could touch

                                                          if you were here
                             stuttering
                your shirt

                a sky for my hands
                to seek the sun
                of your heart in
if I lie
                             on the earth
would the rain find me
                before you

ii
Wouldn’t I like to leave
wouldn’t I want to learn
                to stutter

                wouldn’t I welcome a few
                             more freckles

on my wheat-field, a yodel made manifest,
a one-way street laid plain and plainer

                as the moths land, wings spread,
                everything turning to seed.

iii
Maybe absence is a mirage, maybe mirage
                is a kind of union.

                             Emptiness
declares itself like a mask,

                every stone sitting on a shadow.

                If I had walked, if I had strayed
or pitched my tent elsewhere. What is a tent

                but a mask to hide in? If I hadn’t
                             asked, or answered. But these

aren’t the times for wondering what kind of solid

                             loaf the sun can bake
every day; you know all you have learned

                and nothing more, enough to free you.

*Photo courtesy Pepius.