jordan durham / poem

Lilith I

When I found her on the side of the road

the field’s view was winter-wrung. My eyes 

took in the dying day’s light—as her, who was 

a thing sculpted like aloneness—staring softly. 

I tried to tell her yes, this was the life 

she clung so desperately to—the browns and knife

blades between her fingers. She didn’t listen, 

as one doesn’t hear the quiet slipping 

of sleep through consciousness.

~

If this becomes a tearing, leaf stem

from the branch or shifted beginning

of avalanche from slopes, then we whisper 

it. This is the long way home against twilight,

day’s zipper closing back into its barren self. 

No new beginnings when the wind rips, 

rips; more snow dripping down through June.

~

Once more, and again: you’re still gone.

This whetted limb: seasons changing 

through new you don’t see. How 

heavy the seam of time through this 

root system—silence intertwined, holding.

~

Her screams sliced through the house; 

this I remember, wanting 

a clean cut. 

Instead, the saw’s

jagged teeth.

~

Memory: the room neither steps into at once.

---

Jordan Durham’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blackbird, Cimarron Review, Quarterly West, and Indiana Review, among others. She currently lives in Columbia, Missouri.