I Am Only now Beginning To Answer Your Letter
by Olena Kalytiak Davis
Remind me of your affliction.
I'd like a chronological exhibit
of the disorders leading up to our
conversation, like your old driver's licenses
arranged in that one thin pocket of leather,
the phases of your hair, the splay
of your youth. Your current
eyes distorted by lenses, you're speaking clearly,
louder than the drugs prescribed.
Talking with you was like opening an empty drawer.
Talking with you was like emptying an open drawer.
My hands flowing with garments out-dated, or never worn.
what do you call that thing a priest wears
around his neck? The scarf of a priest...
Explain how we're so immediately alive.
And how far can I carry the thought of you
when already the snow won't hold me.
Even rosaries get tired
And you're not thinking me,
you're just imagining my dead sisters
You say you want
to feel the words.
But I want you to explain it simply, clinically.
Because now that I've thought about it, what
doesn't begin with love and death and end
in loneliness?
I'm only now beginning to answer your letter:
remind me of your affliction.
I believe this poem is about a relationship that harmed, again, by distance between two people significant to each other. It contains very effective emjambment throughout the entire poem, emphasizing particular points. For instance, the second to last stanza: separating the line at "end" highlights the next line, which deals with loneliness.
