I wish you were
on this promontory
above the Mississippi,
your curly white hair sunstruck,
wispy strands like rainclouds
above your wrinkled cheeks.
I wish you were alive again.
We’d sit on this bench
under the carmine canopy,
your arm nestled
across my shoulders,
keeping me warm,
keeping me close,
while we marvel at ospreys
on sandstone screes facing egrets
floating atop whitecaps
like a flock of stars.
You’d smile, point out
red-spotted purples
like winged sapphires
on gooseberry brambles,
point out a timber rattlesnake
slinking away, too far to bite us.
Alone, I watch boughs
dangle over the cliff,
twilight scrambling
down the shore,
pockmarked by gray pebbles.
And I’ll rise when lampposts
flash on as if to beckon me
home, where I’ll compose
another poem, each written word
a synonym for loss.
–
Jacob Butlett is a three-time Pushcart Prize- and one-time Best of the Net-nominated poet. His works have been published in many journals, including The West Review, Colorado Review, and The Comstock Review. He teaches at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he will earn his MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry).