Roea and Julie Wade

medium: photograph

Yes, Robert, the new thinking is still about loss.
We wonder whether the ice has broken us
at last, the smocked visage of the trees no longer
tender, and icicles beyond the bedroom window,
striking prison bars in shadows made of moon.
It is this season, though, and not this language
from which elegies protrude; even the sound of
sunlight or daybreak warms me like a swill of tea.
When I was younger, my passport unstamped,
my suitcase unbattered, I wished for the blessing
called getting away. Now little girls with their
shovels are carving the lawn, little birds treading
tenuous wires. These are the days you spoke of,
Robert, the good flesh continuing, the numinous
hours, and the first word I think of is stay.

-Julie Wade