older poems

Apology To The One I Won't Call Back

You are the only one I ever told
about the house in the valley, the mountains.
I couldn’t stop myself when you
brushed your hand through my hair,
but never tried to touch my lips.
When you asked where I saw myself,
I knew you didn’t mean here –

this small cave with three doors and one brown wall,
side by side with a person I never knew.
I told you: In the summer it rains every afternoon,
the clouds roll in like a yawn to fill every crag.
There is a hammock, a screen door
and no neighbors for miles.

I could feel it with each word,

the damp-warm air like a breath

on the back of my neck,

the shiver it sends down my spine.

I know it is you standing behind me.

I’ve never liked that feeling.

I feel raw after I’ve been too truthful,
the way my knuckles crack and bleed in winter,

the ache a panicked pulse, hot and sharp.
I can’t bear the way I look in your eyes.
What is the reality of secrets? Now you live there too,
and I can’t go back,

can’t call you back.
I’m somewhere else now,
the mouth of the river opens onto the ocean

and I dive until everything is hidden
and there are only

glowing fish to light my path. 

The Beach At Night


I can’t look at waves

without thinking of their absence—

the ocean without a pulse,

and what that would mean for us,

what it would mean for the moon.


Tonight if I wanted to
I could pull the moon from the sky

and watch it drip between my fingers

like a smooth orb of butter.

Golden tendrils shimmer on the black

surface of the water, swaying like a hand

waving goodbye.

Instead, I study your face

until it is lost under a passing cloud.
I wonder if we will be the same

when you return, or if the craters of your eyes

will cradle milky shadows. 

On the drive back I roll the windows down,

and lick salt from the corners

of my mouth.
Waves swell and fall in harmony
with the asphalt tire crunch
of miles melting away.
I know we will never be the same.
Even the most dull moments
are unique.
The waves are already gone. 

-Claire Nelson