A Thing with Stitches

 
The day comes unannounced, inexplicable,

when you can no longer assemble your face

 

        into a blue-&-white bouquet,

color diffusion creating the illusion of light.

 

The day comes when the illusion of light

is not enough

 

to sustain a house of cards, a score of men,

a girl going in & out of the yellow field.

 

Islands float in milk, magma: volcanic rock

I need you     to sharpen into something

 

                that can cut food

or kill me. I do believe it makes sense, bee,

a kind I am too far away to see.

 

You understand. What will save us is a thing

with stitches, stored in the dark. The land marches on

in just one direction, but how can I follow it

 

without feet.     How can I hold it without hands.
 
 
 

Lucy Wainger's poems appear or will appear in Poetry, Best American Poetry 2017, and elsewhere. She studies creative writing at Emory University.