Killarney Clary

 

I list in my mind what I have left to do. I don’t need to do anything. I am this close to the heart of my life. Nothing left to buy; I’ve written a last postcard. “Let me come inside,” I plead. Inside what, and who’s to answer? What remains is my moving through the cathedral as it moves to me. What’s near alters most. Colored light is blocked and let fall by columns and archways with my pace. Mine.

Between surrender and a train ticket, I am interested and alone. I hold coins and then they’re spent. I warm my hands at a bank of candles, each lit by someone for something, tall, creamy with their flames reaching together. I want to stay here, for the few hours, on behalf of all I’ll never know.

Killarney Clary’s fourth book of prose poems, Shadow of a Cloud but No Cloud, was published by the University of Chicago Press. She has received Lannan Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants.