Francine Witte

Francine Witte

Broken Sun

The clouds drifting across. Light, then dark, then light. The rain in the clouds stuffed up like anger since you left. Wait, I wanted to tell you, you left but you forgot to take me. The wash of yellow on the sky canvas. Those are the good days. Other days, the clouds scrunch the rain out, spongelike. A little at a time. In a line at the supermarket, or later, driving, my knucklehands squeezing the wheel, or later than that, in sleep, seconds before a dream.

Francine Witte

Rowboat, rowboat

Look at the hole. The width of a straw but we didn’t see. Like a night-whispered name I chose not to hear. Me and you out there on the lake, Hot day, sun bake. Sun above, the width of our thumb. It was her name you said in your sleep last night as you dreamed, as you slept, as love crept out the door that was open the width of a heart. And now, hours later we are out in this boat, all rock and clunk and we notice the hole, the lake inching in. You tell me the shore is near enough. The width of a swim. Water eating our shoes, and I climb on you, last time on you. In the water, we float to shore like a two-person stone. The boat and ghost of us sinking slowly behind.

Francine Witte

You took

The sky itself, the sun, the stars, the moon. You took the speech from off my tongue. You took the smooth of satin when I touch it. You took the pull of trees in a windstorm. You took the candle burning inside me, the wax collecting and reburning. Nothing left but puddle now. You’d take that if you could. You took the hand of summer, featherstroke on my back as I lay in the sun, the waves a crush nearby. You took the brush of August into September, that moment of twist, one month to the next. You took that moment, that day, that month. You took. You took. You took.