By Sonia Gernes

Each day a cloister
in which the world slips away,
I keep this house
cusped on its hill
as I would keep an Alpine cell:
scissors, plate, a bowl of apricots
to catch the sun, a silence
in which I step through fear
into the room aloneness makes
and there lie down
unbridled, un-bride,
my body a narrow bed
as far from touch
as the moon from the branch of the pine.

How can I bear such solitude?
I will tell you:
in the first twilight
before the fireflies, children swing
in the park below. Girls
in sash-tied dresses
lean back, make streamers
of their hair, pump themselves
into a forgetfulness so pure
I rise in the air beside them,
become the voice
they streak through the dusk,
become the force that propels
even the lonely soul
to seek and gain the sky.

This poem first appeared in a collection from the author, which is published by University of Notre Dame Press. It is used here with the permission of the author, who retains the copyright. Sonia Gernes is professor emerita of English at Notre Dame.