In the beginning, the world didn’t extend outside my field of view. First snow, then new leaves. I wanted you to be the mirror from which I saw the day. Nothing would hurt, everything fragile: I was in and of, from, and also so-and-such. When touched, I didn’t have anyindependant parts—bare-knuckle, collarbone, what was down is also up. You were always breathing ivy, evergreen. When my life became an estuary, yours was a garden hidden by trees. What should I call you? Yew, or oak, or pomegranate seed—I could tame myself by returning to logic. Always, always, foxglove, in between. Two fingers across a mouth. I watched from your reflection, as if it it could bring me warmth.
About the Poet
Eric Stiefel is a graduate of the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also served as junior fellow in poetry. He was recently named the winner of the 2018 Sequestrum New Writer Awards and a finalist in the 2018 Penn Review Poetry Prize. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Foglifter, Communion, Dream Noir, The Louisville Review and elsewhere.
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