Visit

by Catherine Zickgraf

The stream in my backyard is filled with stars among the slick rocks,

overflowing from the swollen pond above it. 

Under the lid of midnight you emerge through the trees 

like you appear sometimes in my dreams.

But we’ve breathed this night into existence. 

We run, race to hold back advancing time, wrapping ourselves in an afghan, 

skin to skin in the wind through the curtains at the window—

until the fading night fizzles 

into the climbing horizon of soft light. 

You left once. You’ll leave again.

I’ll come down to the kitchen tomorrow, 

your smell on my neck from our dawn parting, 

and begin again my routine until you return. 

I am wasting away the life in me, watching for you against the back window, 

carrying the exhaustion of this cycle: you leave, I rally on, 

and the stream keeps running into the earth.