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Sarah Stickney: Guest

April 25, 2018 by PBQ Leave a Comment

Staying with friends I felt embarrassed by my love
for them, as if it were a wound that might bleed
onto their pale, hand-knotted carpets. Back home 
I filled my kitchen with the first daffodils 
that had been lured by the sky's fetish-blue 
into blooming, then nearly ruined by the late snow 
that pressed into the windows as if asking
to be let inside. I need the sound of fire 
as much as I need its warmth. I know 
the loneliness of being among others, a scent 
like a waltz at low volume. I suspect
only egomaniacs like this much solitude,
but like me fire never says enough.
Fire my good dog, my work-shirt. Everything living 
holds heat, even the long, cool leaves of plants, 
their gestures as subtle as hungry guests moving 
tentatively in a kitchen. Wind blew in a poem, 
and then outside all day as if it were starving flame. 
Who knows how the wind feels about its job
of touching everything, how it lives
this omnivorous love and whether it speaks
a word to everything it touches.

Filed Under: Contributors 97

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