While Reading Plato During a Lockdown
I see you everywhere. I see you
when the moon sullies
the hare’s prints in the snow.
I see you in the windows
and hallways and eyes
hollowing my children’s faces.
You might’ve been sick,
or beautiful. Everyone
has a father. There are few
words for loneliness
like a child’s. I haven’t slept
for so long. The night
shrieks like a woman
who wakes to find her
partner dead beside her.
I want to go wherever
sense has gone. All words
are injury: sink, swim, kin.
Did you hear the rain
last night? It fell
apart on the patio
floor. It fell to shadows
in my mouth. I’m asking
about death. Like a star,
how it is to collapse.
I imagine you as light,
tethered to nothing.
I imagine I miss you
when I’m afraid
to open the doors.
