Ojalá


by Gale Marie Thompson

This is one big sentence
This is another
What moves as the light goes down
the sunbox haltingly near
You go into the woods alone
and I forget that there are woods
and that I can do things in them
First you see the family
and then you don't see the family
The snow bunting of march
shoals in hollow places
This house is all I see
It’s just science,
like the mammoth’s head
the face of a boy
hearing for the first time
And we were not in love
but round vessels in the snow
blue sweaters asleep in the hallway
Fall is no fall
so here’s hoping
that it is willing
that I am willing
and that I am imagining it
Idleness in some places
Where the universe is spreading
and thirty miles will do
I want to be embroidered
as if then I could adhere to anything