#johanna skibsrud
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)