Some mornings in that half-hearted season

& so early the webs of funnel weavers clustered

 

like little ghost nets still nested in the barn

grass & fog I wandered goldenrod

 

fields, it was really all over

the place, just going bonkers everywhere

 

you looked —

the yes & yes & yes of its melancholy

sing-song

such an invasive pleasure

 

& how dare they go on like that

when I went so far to get away from beauty?

 

One night after dark I trespassed at the lake

& watched stars snap into place

 

until the sky was bright with minor

constellations & before I knew it

 

I was becoming a real expert

on loneliness

 

till the security guard yelled from his

golf cart that I had to go home

 

& I drove back along the dark

dirt road that wasn’t named,

 

just called by what it led to.

Day after day like this the edges gave.

 

Sometimes it rained for weeks, sheets

of it through the trees, radio static;

 

sometimes I forgot where I was,

or who I was,

 

or whomever it was I’d meant to be

by now

 

& by now it was growing so late 

here in this century of the new influencers

 

here in the pell-mell somewhere

of the remarkable disaster

 

in which you can’t love me

enough, even now —

 

Oh it goes on & goes on,

the long ache of this knowing

 

& all the little horses of grief

throb on the wind —

(“of its melancholy / sing-song” borrows lyrics from the song “Rough Designs” by the band Manatree)

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Allison Titus is the author most recently of the chapbooks Sob Story (Barrelhouse) and Topography of Tears (Artifact Press) and the poetry collection The True Book of Animal Names (Saturnalia). She teaches in the low-res MFA program at New England College, works at an ad agency, and is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and the NEA.