Jessica Peters

DEATH OF A FRIEND

 

This tree is not a tree, it is the space between the light.

 

Hold a mirror up to roses,

No-reflection will wink

Back at you

For eons.

 

Ten thousand silver windows

Sinking into themselves

Like so many Russian dolls,

Toward the most delicate and

Unmoved smallness,

 

Until smallness itself

Sinks into a silver eye

That blinks, silently,

Shut.

Jessica Peters

NOT-FORGETTING, IN AUTUMN

 

They call it body memory,

the way our bones remember:

a far spring, the new, humid

summer, the clutch

of the belly in love or

in fear, the curve of smooth

leather around an old,

stitched-up sphere.

 

They call it muscle memory,

and we repeat what we remember:

the texture of the skin,

the tenor of the blade,

the rattled weights returning

every year.

 

Lament of falling leaves,

so quiet beneath

the bombast of the sun.