Last Stop
Would it were a relief, the life leaving the body
With the tenderness of water, the mad rush of waves
To cover and uncover the shore with its fixedness, fierce
Attentions, determined efforts, come to stillness. No less,
The resting of the ocean while the moon ceases its pull
On our weighted rope. We would all know that what came before,
What is coming now, is unfurling like birds across the sky,
Snow tracked along the floor, a bolt of cloth, a parade of cars.
And as for the rush of sea that swallows, the tidal wave of particulate
Matter mixed to make us now busy with the unmaking, I could accept it,
But for you. There would be sorrow at the tearing apart of things,
The searing end sending us careening back into the anemone cave of our coming. There would be a longing to hold to the disappearing earth’s skin,
A drive to find a way back in, to grab you, finding ourselves on the edge
Of a bus, about to leap to pavement that’s no longer there,
Calling to the driver to stop, and there’s no driver. For loving you,
I would regret this.
Meghan Sterling is a writer and writing teacher who lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband and cat. Sterling’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in Red Paint Hill, Fredericksburg Art and Literary Review, Chagrin River Review, Lingerpost, Yellow Chair Review, Cladesong, WNC-Woman, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Clementine Poetry Journal, the Chronogram, Stone River Review, and others.
