Today's poem is by Chelsea Dingman

As if Whatever is Leaving / Is the Prayer We've Been Meaning to Come to
       

It might be that I've been wrong
        about the crow & that power
line that wears it now. That gone child
        in the pink feathers of a magnolia
tree, discovered after a party by the lake
        last night. The particular loneliness
I've become accustomed to calling
        prayer—the last room one enters
not to leave, perhaps. The edge of some dream
        one will carry to the end of a life
but not be able to enter. The sky, another
        unbearable thing. How long
must we look for what will outlast us
        when the sky is above, a single
mistaken flame? Like that child. I keep
        coming back to the child
when my heart is aimless. When there is little
        to do but hunt my own
ruin in grasses that shatter at the base
        of the willow tree that grows
into the lake. I remember being young & how
        I loved someone. That love
has become something else now. Its tenderness
        broken. Its brokenness, tender.
Wherein, there are feathers fleeing the sky
        tonight. Thieving this dark
from memory. I've mistaken beauty for direction
        from this acre of unknowing. Might
we move toward each other, rather
        than away. Even in death. Might
any movement mean this night & the next
        are the only afterlife. I can't help
but think that I am arriving at myself
        whenever I wake.

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Copyright © 2024 Chelsea Dingman All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission