Art: Photography by Alison Prine
NEVER THE DISTANCE
Just after the embarrassment of being young
comes the embarrassment of aging.
And in between – pelted with questions –
you try to say yes. You try
to take someone in your arms
and want them.
I let apples rot in the grass.
I had a boat, but it dried to dust.
I had a cup. I had a midnight
of porcelain. I swept up pieces.
I tore out page after page
until only blank ones were left.
The moon taught me
to thin slowly, night by night.
I planned to travel, but didn’t go.
It was never the distance,
but the velocity.
The destinations are buried inside me.
It wasn’t the hills, but their pitch.
About the author:
Alison Prine‘s debut collection of poems, Steel, was chosen for the Cider Press Review Book Award and came out in 2016. Steel was a finalist for the 2017 Vermont Book Award. Her poems have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Harvard Review, Hunger Mountain, and Prairie Schooner among others. She lives in Burlington, Vermont and works as a psychotherapist.
Art: Photography by Alison Prine
