Striptease

It takes a lifetime

to shed our skin. 

Take a lesson: 

The snake slides out

the maple shakes off its propellers

and hair by hair we follow

like Hansel and Gretel

dropping what we can.

The cicada sings

only after leaving

its shell on the tree

just as the poem

unwinds down the page

losing its earrings,

its shoes on the stairs.

Originally Published in The North American Review

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Abyss

You’ve left a hole

the size of the sky

in the chair across the table

in the chasm of the closet

your shoes hold the shape

of every step we took 

through the seven rooms

of a world with no language

but that of moving

on macadam and the miles

of velvet earth before rainfall

between rows of corn

and up the curving drive

until they landed beside

the bed a black hole

you disappeared through

as I look for a sign

of you slivered with stars

your body without borders

nowhere and everywhere

in the wind moving through trees

on its way down the hall

to the back of my neck

in the chill you still send through me

and so I slip into the deep

abyss of your shoes

standing where you were last

pointing in two directions

trusting the way forward                 

is also the way back

Originally Published in The Paris Review

The Breathing Field

Between each vertebra

is the through line

of your life’s story,

where the setting sun

has burned all colors

into the cord.  Step

over.  Put on the dark

shirt of stars. 

A full moon rises

over the breathing field,

seeps into clover and the brown

lace of its roots

where insects are resting

their legs.  Take in the view.

So much is still

to be seen.  Get back

behind your back, behind

what is behind you. 

Originally Published in Yoga Journal
        and The Breathing Field (Little, Brown)

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Prayer for a New Millennium

On the first evening

buzzing with the last

light that skids through everything,

let the body drink its deepest

breath, the lower back

spread like a constellation

with one lone star swerving.

Let the hands, lined with meteors,

open, releasing all they’ve held —

coins, hammers, steering

wheels and the silken

faces of children — to find

what on earth they really hold.

Let the crown of the head

move away from the shoulders

and into the distance

where another is waiting.

Let go of the forecast you heard

when you were younger

than the child now clattering

up the backstairs all

laughter and gasping

for what we’re here to do.

Look down.  Look at the stars.

We’re here so briefly, weather

with bones. 

Published in Southern Poetry Review,
     Prayers for a Thousand Years (HarperCollins),
        and The Breathing Field (Little, Brown)

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 All poetry on this page
Copyright © by Wyatt Townley, 2006