Issue #28.6 Four Poems by Esther Sadoff
Spaces
I'm sorry for always looking for the spaces in things,
for getting lost mid-conversation.
Maybe the conversation is the moment: the tilted heads, the lean in to lessen the space.
The space between words keeps growing.
Why does every hour have its own color, its own shade? Does anyone else see it?
It's like looking up at the full moon without pointing.
Audience Everything has an audience: the way the light rims each wave in gold, the way the fireflies hum to each other, echoing moon glow. Audience to myself, I ricochet vibrations, compounding each hurt, nourishing myself, watching me heal, ear pressed to my own heart.
Poet Maybe the purpose was never to find my voice, but to make enough space for forgiveness. It was never about writing one true sentence, because nothing anyone says is perfectly true. I lie to myself, say all words are equal. If the moon appears at sunrise, it is equally day and night.
Fearful as I am They say an elephant's foot is supple, semi-softness to accommodate all its weight.
There are places we never thought to look. An elephant is an immutable fact.
The supple bareness was never for us to see, the way weakness sometimes weakens us,
the way I'm always checking my own pulse at the base of the jaw and at the wrist,
where I feel nothing no matter how hard I press. The way I can never remember which side houses the heart, so I search with my fingertips,
the same way I'll never forget the tender veins in your hands that you showed me. Why did you show me?
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Esther Sadoff is a teacher and writer from Columbus, Ohio. She is the author of four chapbooks: Some Wild Woman (Finishing Line Press), Serendipity in France (Finishing Line Press), Dear Silence (Kelsay Books), and If I Hold My Breath (Bottlecap Press). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Hole in the Head Review.
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