poem for tonight

...
Branch scraping again. It made the sound
of missingness, like you. It made
the sound of tiny eiffel towers on their sides.
But it was the dark girl
or the dark boy self you were missing.
Doesn't matter what it was about. Dirty moon-moon. Little
drugged missionary stars came out.

So you took their advice and stayed awake in half
as in a tunnel where you are the only one
going the opposite way,
—not so yellow, not so open,—
you come out and the trees have split
between the past with its type of fire
and the future with its,
you can burn through one sweet branch at a time,
you can gather up the branches with your large large heart
but you're not going to be one thing, ever again—



—Brenda Hillman, from "Branch, Scraping," Bright Existence