This poem previously appeared in Alba #4; one of Kathryn's new Internet poems will soon appear in The Magazine of Speculative Poetry.
Dark Planet
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by Kathryn Rantala
I'm sorry, Harry, I can't talk to you now, I'm writing.
I just can't
though you linger,
a swimmer in afternoon,
out of the sun and clothes
and full of an end-of-the-day want
before you are dry.
Your need sings like notes in your skin,
a lyric in a place without ears,
in a place
where fog birds muffle the beach,
pulling the water, the shells, the sky
inside
where everything in
is grey
and everything tightens to words,
but just not a word for you, Harry,
not right now,
and seldom
ever
for me,
where everything in was there,
the already rhythms,
the fog-grey frame,
my own unlimited lack,
where everything in
is gone,
where it knows it should talk,
but can't,
where it goes
and I go
and where,
before we can ever come back,
we are gone,
I just can't talk when I'm writing.