Water Cycle #1: To Whom Shall I Return by Bill Neumire

Water Cycle #1: To Whom Shall I Return

Bill Neumire

Streetlight casts a lyric / girl in the Friday night rain, canary / dress, tardy boyfriend in the mouth of a prettier option.

Quiet closet of wire / hangers. The smallness / of the house tonight. Windowed / world. What part of my mind is she? What art of my bind? What start of my blind wishing?

Like a tree I remember / myself in circles. This is a commercial about my / divorce, about the newest physics of nothing. My basement walls confess / leaks all night.

Solder, says this / art. She flicks her cellphone to her ear like a glowing interior / monologue, her moon-moved face so / whitely willing.

Light years rustling / her in the reborn rain, the ocean sending / emissaries, the river, attendants.

Her crying? A foolishness in the history of crying. We touch / without touching, bonded in glow.
In some dreams we stand / in puddles together. In some she's the water.

The rain reborn in her / rustling years light this memory / of circles. Bind my art to bridges.
Mind my smallness & its house / of closets, each one larger & more / barren than the last.

Like animals with mange, we die / of interior monologue, of watching / a car take the girl who watched the rain take her / boy, the rain that's the softest curse we can't remember.

Bill Neumire's first collection, Estrus, was a semi-finalist for the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award. His recent work appears in Brooklyner, Barrow Street, Istanbul Review, and Laurel Review. He teaches in Fabius, New York, and currently serves as an assistant editor for the online magazine Verdad.

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