Speed of Light

 

 

Lying on the bed full-dressed the afternoon

old flames, our fingers

touching. Yellow, dry

it’s the dying season birds flee horses stand

in the stubble, dunged.

 

Having traveled years just to reach the bedroom floor

the sun

comes to say how far it’s come

and slip

like a slow knife against your wishes.

 

Rumbles from the minor earthquake of a bus.

Goodbye goodbye

children call in the street. Yellow leaves like missing gloves

drop, forgotten.

Everything is light. Nothing is light.

 

 

Claudia Burbank is the recipient of a 2003 Fellowship from the New Jersey state Council on the Arts as well as a Pushcart Prize nomination.  Her recent work appears in Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, and 42opus.