April 2: [First air and light suffuse us-] by Alessandra Lynch

[First air and light suffuse us—]

First air and light suffuse us—
daylily, oriole, dust—
then love, that airborne thing.
We become forgetful, leave doors and windows open—
the room adrift with pollen-druff, beetle-husk, skullock-motes—
the world’s quick dispatch signifying the end, and more gorgeous telegrams await—
pin-oak leaf, darkening canal, little horses fenced by highway, clouds, your face. (Goodbye, goodbye.)
The dead bits fighting in the wind drift in. I hold this paper. The slight texture ink makes—
a pen pressed so not to rip what gives it purpose.
There are delicate moments like this to stir
Or jostle hope—. What more to wrestle? What else to woo?
Close, door. Close, petal. Human eye, you close too.

—Alessandra Lynch (Marion County)

This poem originally appeared in Crazyhorse.
Alessandra Lynch is the author of two collections of poetry: It Was a Terrible Cloud at Twilight (Louisiana State University Press, 2008) and Sails the Wind Left Behind (Alice James Books, 2002). Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, jubilat, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, and The Virginia Quarterly Review, among other journals. Lynch teaches poetry to undergraduate and graduate students at Butler University.