The End of Daylight Savings

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

Three flannels, two pairs of jeans, no time for boxers,
 they aren’t essential, you explained before leaving
for Waldo Lake, alcohol and sleeplessness
on your breath.    Shut up     your words shaking
our bed,    I’ve lost      myself here  lingers
while I stay awake trying to learn how darkness
feels without your body, how you arrived at this
desire – maybe I just need to find it again?   nature or god?
                                                                                                     I imagine
you’re hiking from Shadow Bay to Inslet Point,
the sooner sun behind you: what will you make
of its slow rise? You’ll call its white a hollow drum
and watch its head disperse in waters unprepared
for morning, a waking tide ebbing wet leaves
that work their way between your torn soles
and feet, while here, our dog is snoring, warming mine –
and I return to you last night, though you’ve forgotten
how you lifted up your arm as though to strike,
but maybe that was prayer, a call for light, the way
your aging father lifted up both hands before he dove
face forward to be baptized.
                                             You’re undressing now –
in my mind or wherever you have wandered, down
to a self that isn’t yours, submerging in ignited water,
trying to name this wilderness alone. Call it the lost hour:
the unlearned home: a slow rising god you can hold
                                                                                          outside the body.