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I would remain by night with you
who, having held me once, wrapped everything I knew
into my sleeping body’s hold and held fast and stayed.
You shuttled in sleep against me and away, not sleeping,
beached and exhausted by wine and rushes from
another life whose body my body meant to alter.
But I am wayfaring and recently wrecked;
I understand the cost of pulling free from what once loved you.
I would remain by night with you, if the night is clear enough
to see by, and the wind light enough to draw the stars
in the skin’s skies open, and the waves you sensed
through the dress in the wind are real, and only mine.
Joanna Klink’s most recent book of poems is Raptus. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Montana. Her new book is forthcoming in 2015.
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