Sun Plains
BY RYANN STEVENSON
Don’t tell me your name is a measure
for smallness. If you leave this way,
let it be like an accidental catnap
in the bathrobe of your love, closer than ever
to the plains’ greatness, and maybe
I will be there, holding open your loneliness
like a door. And unlike those blazing lanterns
set windward on the big sky
of your affliction, bound by the arms of night,
I will never unlive you. My love won’t leave
with the fabrics of the season—
an always-cloak, shrooming my shoulders.
And should you remain, I’ll never forget
the heart’s preparation, this feeling,
like holding my breath at the gas pump,
gripped by the potential of our static;
how our hair stood on end at the science center,
and now we’re here.
Should this life allow you to discover
a new language, one that will carry you
inside the soft vowel of your favorite collie’s
one blue eye, unbound by the arms, the night—
forgive yourself.
