dept. of the interior
Do you see through
or only into sky?
Nature abhors
a preposition.
Sky has no eyes
to see, isn't even
blue but seems it.
Space is room
it keeps for you.
eclipse
Abstraction is only that
in the presence of the figure.
Now you’re gone and
I wrote this whole poem
lacking instances
of things to leave out—
flat sky, slapped-
on clouds, skyline
to choke the horizon.
Forever I will think of you
as a unique unit of
time I can’t recover.
(a minute split
in two has a twin
in its second
thirty seconds).
Today the moon’s as far
from the world as it is
smaller than the sun—
an incidental fit.
In my time spent spitting
behind your dark disc
I learned what light isn’t
only there to see with.
continuum
A moment takes
place all over space
(sun gone
round moon
vaulted evening
over it).
Nothing remains
a memory
so long
as you are with me—
the volume of sound
takes up the room
we can’t see
to see through.
Kate Colby is author of several books of poetry and essays, including The Arrangements and Dream of the Trenches. She lives in Providence, RI with her family. More about her work can be found at her website www.katecolby.com.