BEFORE THE STARS
errol miller
“What I want back is what I was.”
Sylvia Plath
From the bend in the river
backward
you cannot see
you cannot see to see
the eyeful of shore that remains
around the curve, in the dark bully-weeds
in the sticks and stones of mud and clay
a great open gate with fixed bayonets
they have to stay where they are, the night-pages
they laugh and talk to no one, not even God
they are the application-seekers
the eternal takers
they fill out the forms
she was staring into the face of something
she was a beggar’s lamb for poetry
buying a ticket
to help herself, to hurt herself
she was in a war
writing home to England
and of course she ran backward
out of breath
searching
for what had been
it was not there
for it had been and was
as her heart took a high beat
for logic’s sake
and cried for distance
which it could not recover.
