Troy Urquhart

SOMETIMES, A BODY LIES.

& when I wake it’s as if 

     it never happened as if                   & what you should have said

there’s still the shape                               isn’t never but always as if

     of your body                      it always happened & is always happening

in the space                                  there’s so much more than ghosts

          beside                                        that push against your hand

                                                                 when it brushes against

& in the light that seeps in                            these sheets

     streetlight through the blinds

there’s nothing left to see                        & the shape of things is never

     only space & sometimes              square & never quite a line

(it seems) an outline

          that always fails                                              —there is a roundness to it all

                                                            as day folds into night folds into

& is it a failure of nerve                          everything & in the dark you start

     of faith or certainty                        to think of time as a sphere

that leaves                                    of space as only the curve of stars

     & suddenly a word                      & not the thing of bodies

said & left undone

     becomes an emptiness                   there is a sense of never

          that lies                              in every always

                                                in the way a hand rests

but the body lies              gently on a forearm

     & touch is never                in the way a bird calls

true                                               in the way I said goodbye

     except                                                       

                                                & in the way the sound of

in the dim light I hear                  that word covered over

     & count the times the air               every hello & cut away

goes in & out & in                                   the end you thought

     & the end of this                                      you knew & folded

          I know is when there is no in                   into this

               & only nothing more than

               space that folds around this breath

                    & disappears 

Troy Urquhart is the editor of Willows Wept Review and the author of Springtime Sea Bathing (Greying Ghost Press, 2010). His work has appeared in publications including PANK, After the Pause, Dodging the Rain, Twentieth-Century Literature, Mud Luscious, and English Journal. Find him online at www.troyurquhart.com.