It was like being stuck in a door,
both of us fighting to get out,
the pressure building
like there was a crowd behind us
pushing, pushing.
And then a sudden surge
and I burst through,
hearing your voice trail away behind me
as I floundered out there in the light,
thinking, "The door was too small."
And later then they brought you out,
a battered lifeless thing,
and I was alone for the first time ever.
Sometimes I wonder
if all my poems are to you,
keeping a record you'll never read
of my sojourn in that place
you never reached.
Sometimes I think
they need to invent
a new word for loneliness—-
a sound that reaches
into the marrow of the bone
then passes on
into infinity.
FIRE 21, p 15; Albert Huffstickler