• Skip to content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Painted Bride Quarterly

  • About
    • About PBQ
    • People
  • Issues
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Print Annuals
  • Podcast
    • Latest Podcast
    • All Podcasts
  • News & Events
  • Submit
  • Shop
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Prose
  • Contributors
  • Current Issue

Richard Tayson: Afterwards Antigone Goes To The Water

May 20, 2011 by PBQ

When he was dead I went to the river singing.
O wind over the transparent
surface, how can I act
with my hands
broken? Sand
I kneel in, glimmering. I lose
my body each day
for an asteroid. The planets
flicker; they are not
in a pretty row. Nothing to say
of hair turned straw, eyes
plugged with dirt and staring.
Be still, I can no longer
hold you. (The one
I loved in my arms, my lips
on his crusted lips.) The scar
running the length
of his chest. And here
in the sand, his eyes
again. My life
has been but a moment
of requiring. I crush and love
in one small gesture. Nothing escapes
my vision. I lay down
and imagine my cave. Color
has no purpose in a world of dim.

Filed Under: Contributors 63, Issue 63, Poetry, Poetry 63 Tagged With: Contributors 63, Poetry, Poetry 63, Richard Tayson

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Recent News & Events

PBQ @ AWP!

PBQ Poet’s Publishing Premier: Carlos Andrés Gómez’s Fractures

Issue 100 Has Arrived!

Temporarily Closing Submissions

PBQ presents: Slam Bam Reboot

© 2020 Painted Bride Quarterly. Contact PBQ: info@pbqmag.org