Refrain
Emily Light
Standing like an oxidized fire tower
in the silence of students scratching out exams,
I’m liable to seize with the rust of nostalgia.
I can’t refrain from longing in this room
hot as a dog’s pant, nothing to see except mouths
half open, hair falling on sunburnt elbows.
Make me the moon, I’ll ache for the crater I broke from.
Make me a lung, I’ll crave the first cry.
What refrain this is that seizes me at spring’s heel,
a yearly yearning for the irretrievable.
I tadpole the frog. I acorn the oak.
I mark the papers right or wrong
and everyone but me moves on.
Emily Light is a poet, educator, and mother living in northern New Jersey. Her poetry can be found in such journals as Inch, Salt Hill, Cherry Tree, terrain.org, and RHINO, among others.
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