absence. displacement.
waiting. then comes rejection.
anger follows. shame makes
the beds
the shadows jostle between
the walls of the scarcely visited cities.
time nips at our heels we are
afraid to arrive last
I love the rain when it
wraps me like a
river. grafts me to the clouds.
I share in the properties
of the sky. I grow
like a tree
Etel Adnan, "absence. displacement." from Time. Copyright © 2019 by Etel Adnan, English translation Copyright © by Sarah Riggs. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Source: Time (Nightboat Books, 2019)