NELLE 1 | 2018
I wait still at that threshold, the glass doors
sliding their automatic arms wide, the sweep
of your hands across the converging sky
as you turned at the entrance to tell me
how she died: went down in the lake, drink
heavy on her tongue, song forever
stoppered in her throat. We’d gone that day
to buy the objects of repair—drill bit,
screws, the anything-but-tender bindings
we can’t live without. What did it take
for you to say those words? What more could I
know of you after they’d been said? I thought
it was an opening. And then the doors
closed behind you as you stepped inside.