Uncovered at the Falls by Adam Clay

I.

But it’s January, and I think it’s a bee. No matter—
your prized thought is a star hung strangely in the sky,
a saucer of light reflecting mistakes
retold, maybe even a dinner party of families, and it’s time
to rethink what the word family even means. I’m designing
new forms of kindness, admittedly, but the self always
needs something more, doesn’t it?  The boats beached
here believe in water so surely I’d sign up for a naval
commitment without knowing the destination.
On another note, I like how you describe the mundane
in nuclear terms—I’d like to be with you in the afterlife
and a touch before, too, though I’d never
think of shadows the same way. My dreams?
They confuse people and situations so routinely. I hear
running water above the buzz of electrical
humming, but this life seems intent on shuffling
its cards, and among the metaphor
I’m dividing time like those crickets
we first heard together in the future—I’ll squeeze
your hand in that moment: know that.

II.

It’s not a new day here (so many shadows!),
and I’m wallowing in the fact of the brown grass
and how it seems so much surer than the sky.
It’s funny how the word like creates
an entire world in the mind, a world I’d be okay
with if you forgot the previous afterlife, water steeping
on the stove like a routine, a stone that’s always
been there (see what I did just then?). It makes sense
to fall back into memory, perhaps the deepest
channel dug but not always so terrible. I’d like to reshape
most of what you say into a question tossed
towards the light of morning, just to see
what you’d say to your mind reframed
in different words or different verbs (because
what else is there?), and that distant
point is a lonesome thought lit up with hope
so (pardon the directive) let’s warm
our hands by its fire, imagining
how our faces look in its light
to one another, knowing full well I’d give
you a year of my life if you can describe
my expression in five words or less. I’m ready.

Adam Clay‘s latest book is Stranger (Milkweed Editions, 2016). His fourth book, To Make Room for the Sea, is forthcoming in 2020. He edits Mississippi Review and teaches at the University of Southern Mississippi.