In turn, each bell quakes, sifting
Air as if to draw clear lines where
The wind sits and where we begin. All
A whisper into my sorrowing. I
Think now of the time you exhaled
A river into me.
                            There is a flower,
I say. Pluck it from me like a rib. The plants
Along this path are older than the stars
We now hold up our phones to see. 
I told you I can’t see the color
Of a rainbow
                       As if the way you describe
It to me isn’t enough: in pockmark sky,
An envelope of glitter taken hold of
By wind, a screaming of blossom
Into horizon where sun-drunk pilgrims drift
Into what looks like shore,
                                             And then you
Stopped. We search for sustenance
Much like the bird reaching upward
With a partially opened mouth gasps
At life. What it looked like to us,
At least
               I think, as if you didn’t already
Know, was a moon lurching
Toward resistance and the hard
Break of relief when the heart settles
Into hesitant spark. I hear the sounding
Of bells again through
                                      Cover of raincloud.
Everything is enough. Look at the empty
Glass in my hand, think of the fleeting
Seasons brush across my cheek.

—

Tyler Michael Jacobs is the author of Building Brownville (Stephen F. Austin State University Press). His words have appeared in Sierra Nevada Review, Thin Air Magazine, White Wall Review, Funicular Magazine, and elsewhere. His poems have also been featured on Nebraska Public Media. He is a first year MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University.

Photography by: José Ignacio González Pansiera