Elizabeth Bodien

The Visit

Suppose this May morning I were to walk down to the lawn, come around the shagbark tree, and find you shining there – standing in light. You'd be smiling, of course, that boy mischief smile, in your button-down shirt. I would stop, dumbfounded, and wonder whether to run to you or wait until you spoke. Would you speak in your voice? How long would you stay – as long as I wished, until we were spent? Eventually you would leave. How would that happen? Would you fade away slowly or disappear in a flash? Would we talk? Would it be whispers? An ache grows inside me, a hunger which I shall not banish, for my want of that bittersweet.

                                        crescendo of spring
                                        how high the hemlock
                                        the sky still higher