The Last Time I Saw You:
your body like a newborn
horse’s—trying to learn
itself. White-tailed deer,
humming field. I forget
most everything these
days. Like the hard line
of the horizon undoing
the day like a shoelace,
like the picnic table
creaking its emptiness
to the meadow. You maple
tree. You harp
inside of every maple tree,
sat still like some
little angel, hands shuffling
through the mulch.
How can I begin to make
sense of this? How
the sun scatters itself like seeds
across your body, how fast
it tiptoes away. I remember
you. What light your body
carries, in these pockets
and handles of skin.
How you put your hands
out before me, reveal a heap
of dirt. How I might exist
only like this—by the quiet
blackberry thickets, slipping gently
through the wealth of your palms.
Xime Silva won third place in the Charles Crupi Memorial Poetry Contest for Michigan High School students. For more information on the contest, please visit the Albion College English Department website.
The Albion Review 