Poem Moonlighting as Tether
BY AMY DRYANSKY
I lie in bed, hands stacked like wood
on my chest. I don’t know if I’m trying
to start a fire, keep warm, disappear
like a rabbit in a thicket, or simply
add ballast to tether my body, keep
from spinning out. I press against
my caged breath, dark inside straining
to meet dark outside, crossed arms
like dead Ophelia drifting downstream,
minus flowers, water, ode, just my wrists’
faint pulse contrapuntal to faint heart
thump. Hands like empty pockets.
Hands like vacant cradles. Lullaby
to no one. I get up, weak kneed, lungs
slowly deflating balloons, stare
at the sky clotted with stars oblivious,
insultingly bright, seemingly so close
you could pull them down. But not. Yes,
I know what they say we’re made of.
