Silver As It Is Golden

by Esther Lin

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They don’t say this about California:
how the young mist rises to tumult above,
like wood doves scattering into
 
the eaves after choosing the unwise
stairwell by my door to stoke and nest. I
come and go too often for that too-apparent
 
dimple, sunk big in cypress twigs.
I can’t stay put. My clever friend
from New York calls, her voice rooted
 
in the dark earth but reaching up
to twine a steeple. How could anyone
with a wingbeat in the cords be unhappy?
 
She can’t tell if her love is the one at home:
Daybreak we’re two bodies who have found
nothing and then the train comes.
 
Strange after living among Brontë's a telephone.
Storms over fields, we circle what evades us.
I’ve been wrong this time.
 
About anesthesia and a certain weariness
afterward. The curve of the hill, an upturned
wrist. Brown as it is silver, and simple.