True Apothecary | Ellie Gold Laabs
This is how the night unravels
the coiled mesh of the mind.
It’s cold and blue as the center
of a flame. In certain seasons
the evening can take your knees
clean out—crawl you towards
some bright, unsteady dawn.
And you can look for yourself
in letters and the contours
of a bottle, impatient-seasick
to stumble over any pair of eyes
blind enough to meet your own.
And you can sigh and you can
bruise and you can stand so long
underwater your arms become
the trunks of trees, ages hence.
Yes, the windows open and shut—
again, again. And still you can ache,
still stumble. There’s really nothing
to be done. Only hold out a hand
to the mirror, and murmur, like love,
all the things for which you have
to be sorry.
Read by the author:
about the author:
Ellie Gold Laabs was born in Boston at the turn of the century with an East Coast sensibility and a penchant for big and difficult questions. She is now a poet, living in New York, with a harmonica and an obscenely full bookshelf.