Aperture

Open the window and you want to fly out,
though you never actually do—

I think I see you, still there on the ledge,
where I've left you.

How pulled-awake and flung
can one life be?

Again I thought, It will end.
Again I promised and clung.

I learned there that
to cling was in my nature.

I think I see you, though you flash
quickly through the shutter.

I think I hear you, though I sleep.

Remember this as a bolero,
a finite flaring—

both the tulip tree
burning in full bloom

and the weeping silver birch.


by Jennifer Tonge

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