“Even the clocks have run out of time.”
—Carolyn Forche, “Letter to a City Under Siege”
I want the days to be shaped differently—
not longer or shorter,
but reconfigured, wider in some spots,
narrower in others, but still the same acreage
of hours. There’s a loneliness I’m noticing
most afternoons, some way the sun
occupies the skylights, a surveilling
loneliness different from solitude and even
from sadness. I need to find a new angle
in relation to the day’s turning. I need
a more accurate map, some good intelligence,
a foxhole, a molehill. Revolution
seems like such a tall order, but it may be
what’s required to pulverize
this slab of afternoon. This wait, this weight,
this sorry second hand.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 3.
Liz Ahl is the author of Beating the Bounds (Hobblebush Books, 2017) and A Case for Solace (Lily Poetry Review, 2022), which received the 2023 NH Literary Award in poetry. Her latest chapbook, A Stanza is a Place to Stand, was published in 2023 by Seven Kitchens Press. She lives in Holderness, New Hampshire.
See all items about Liz Ahl