#i do not think that i could love a human being

If in a thousand years this
sadness that I am carrying around
with me inside will be burned up;

will fall down and spit like dust to
unknown planets, in particles of
dirt and stone, I can

live with that.

I can let it go. Everything I
have not and
will not do.

I have- my darling-

only sped you on your way,
There is nothing here to

look forward to, or understand.

It is, for you, as though
everything had already
happened, now. As though
you were a planet. The last

remote and quivering matter of a

burned down love.
As though everything
from that long distance,
had already

fallen and fallen;
the stars put out. Already

clanging around in your
head like

spoons in a jar.


- Johanna Skibsrud, from I Do Not Think That I Could Love A Human Being (Gaspereau Press, 2010)