LESLIE HARRISON

[Corona penumbra]


We married in the spring we married the shoulder seasons

their discontents their liminal natures we burned our faces

burned our shoulders with the dying sun we divorced before

we had ever been born we lived almost at the same time

we became halves that belonged to other wholes we became

holes in the bodies of those who loved us we were holding out

we were holding on holding our hands with our hands we

were busy keeping our distance we kept to the shadows stood

the night watch we stared out too many windows watched

the foxes the hunting cats we rented rooms and called them

homes we went again and again into the weather we came back

unchanged and the same storm finally came for both of us

and all we will ever have is our bones alight with it that blue

arc of power that lightning strike we married other people we

didn’t know how could we have known we both wear wings

wear feathers in our skin we cannot fly we stand in this current

we burn


202  The Paris-American

Leslie Harrison's second book, The Book of Endings, is forthcoming. Her first book, Displacement, won the Bakeless Prize and was published in 2009. Recent poems have appeared in The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, Orion and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in Baltimore.

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  Next week's poet:
  
  Meg Day