<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><font face="Helvetica"></font><div data-v-6ee59ef1="" class="card-header pb-2 bg-white pt-3"><div data-v-6ee59ef1="" class=""><div data-v-6ee59ef1="" class="d-flex mb-1 poem__title"><h1 data-v-6ee59ef1="" itemprop="name" class="card-title"><font class="" face="Helvetica" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 28px;">Materials for a Gravestone Rubbing</font></h1></div></div></div><div data-v-6ee59ef1="" class="card-body"><div data-v-6ee59ef1="" class="px-0 mx-0"><font face="Helvetica"><br class=""></font></div><div data-v-1e4a20ad="" data-v-6ee59ef1="" class="poem__actions dark vertical"><div data-v-1e4a20ad="" class=""></div><div data-v-1e4a20ad="" class=""></div></div><div data-v-6ee59ef1="" class="px-md-4 font-serif poem__body"><p class=""><font face="Helvetica"><span class="long-line">I have long wanted to be starlight in spring</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">and the late snow that lingers there, coming down</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">at Harpers Ferry over the river or gathered </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">on a windowsill on third street in Brooklyn </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">when I was twenty-two—the potpourri </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">of sky the wind carries after a storm. </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">The gray darkening on a far ridge. If you are reading this</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">there is still a way. I can take your smooth palm in mine</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">and lead you toward a distant city and a night</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">when you were on the mountain and dreaming of the other world</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">and we can walk together past the pre-war homes </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">converted now to low-rent apartments for college students</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">or workers come in from long days on a road crew,</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">coveralls draped over the backs of kitchen chairs</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">and the light swaying just so. We can go on—</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">along the cracked sidewalks above the train tracks</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">that can’t exist again even as the grasses come up between them</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">and look through a fog and a single pair of headlights</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">making definite beams in the material cold. </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">No moonlight to get netted up in on the surface of the water</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">no traffic at this hour just the scraps of paper blown</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">into gutters and the electric hum of streetlights,</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">a few voices, which almost walk like footfall down alleys</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">overgrown with briars and creeping vines, their crude</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">latticework against the brick and the exhale</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">of a bartender on a smoke break and the smoke</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">which still drifts. Now it must be all worn through</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">but then it was barely remarkable though I stop</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">to look back at the homes and at snow melt on roads</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">the flat glitter on the black road, the moiré pattern </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">yet to be captured by language—and for a minute believe</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">in something as my stepfather believed in the smell of fire</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">whenever he left in the middle of the night</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">and returned before dawn and spoke to no one, didn’t</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">wake anyone up. Sometimes I feel that alone, </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">that pure, as if looking back at myself</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">through the scrim of time and you are there </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">standing in our kitchen at this hour and I can almost </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">hear you and the first singing caught-up there in the back </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">of your throat. Lately I’ve stopped worrying about the end. </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">Each day my hand is smaller on your shoulders. New birds</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">still return and the hillsides green all around, the stars </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">have traveled over the horizon and in the blink </span><br class=""><span class="long-line">of an eye you are here—grape-vine charcoal in your hand;</span><br class=""><span class="long-line">little hyphen I have become.</span></font></p><div><font face="Helvetica"><br></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Matthew Wimberley</font></div><div><span class="long-line"><br></span></div></div></div></div></body></html>