The Pain of the Pull

By Pat Daneman

The green of the leaves is dry as the throat
of a thirsty swallow. Late light through the vault

of clouds is dull as the cup of a shell
far from shore. We sit, only our knees touching.

​

It is locust time, time for the fields to bare

their furrows. Words come slow, rise sleepy

as smoke and linger. Are you happy here?
I have never been. The pain is so old

​

it has died, turned into a ghost. It is grime

on my skin, webs in between my fingers
and toes. I need water and salt in the air. If you die,
I will leave. I will be gone when you come

back from the dark. I close my eyes to the tracks

of the shorebirds. They leave scars when I look 
at the sun. In one hand I hold a flat spiral,

what’s left of a shell. It makes a deep mark.

Your hands are empty, palms cupped at a sky

the bone-white of waiting for rain.

Pat Daneman’s recent poetry appears in Mid-American Review, Stone Canoe, Cloudbank and Third Wednesday. Her collection, After All, was runner up for the Thorpe-Menn Award. She is author of two chapbooks, Where the World Begins (2015), and Not Love, forthcoming from Charlotte Lit press. She lives in Exeter, NH. patdaneman.com.