Whether or Not There Are Apples
for D.
I like to take the dress off the line,
the heat still in it.
The heat comes from the whole dress into me,
and the smell of apples,
whether or not there are apples.
It comes into me it comes into me it solves
a simple coldness.
All these years I still unpin you from the air
when I feel the other, unfathomable, cold.
You are your same shape
and weightless as a photograph
and I can find you any old where, my darling, my
direction. There is a moment when the heat is finally
gone out of the dress so that
it disappears till I think dress
and then it’s there, and spent.
It is like the little dead space, blue hinge
at the switchback of breathing.
Then the dead air comes out.
Every time I’ve needed you you
let me dress in your old soul and smell you.
Since you died I’ve taken you,
I’ve taken you in, just in.
But I am getting old.
And so I need to ask you.
Maybe I’ll be able to cross
the quick blue shift without you.
But will you be wanting to take me
in colorless windrows of wind
instead of my long brown hair?
………………………
Robin Behn (born 1958 )
