“Again” by Addison Affleck

The curtains were pulled askew, the floor was marked
And strewn with cigarette butts, lilac perfume
Lay thick upon my clothes and the bed on which I lay,
Where dust and ashes crept beneath the covers.
She faced away, thinking that I slept
While powdering her face and humming church songs.
I heard her sing, “What matters dear”, and as she turned abreast
Came a soft silence, and I knew she was lighting her cigarette.

She did not touch the smoke, or run her fingers
Through my trailing hair, or lift my head with tender hands
And blush my face with smiles and kisses;
The fairest creature from the earliest Spring,
Outside her step always seemed to pity the moss it pressed;
Yet inside the silent motions of passing death stifled her voice,
While black fire rushed through her veins, lapped at her heart,
And filled the bed chamber with hymns and smoke.

Our small village stood a long mile from town;
From there, each Friday, I drove a far stretch through stormed down
And shaggy woods to clear my lungs, their secret bitter throes
Waning from the broad liquid waves of fresh air.
To me, sheer miracles of loveliness lie in the lone man’s hike
Through thorn-choked basins and wintry colds;
Breathless in high altitude, foreviewing the dew dropping earth.
What is more lovely than this?

At mountains peak, I glanced downwards on the grass,
And the grass bowed when airs of heaven stroked its blades,
Lifting itself again when the clouds had passed;
Alas in the silent hours of eve, I was reminded
Of her sweet-scented voice, rising to stand
Like a solitary dove and spread my bright wings.
I sang, “What matters dear”, and as I turned abreast
Came the praises of mountain wind, and she knew I was alighting the Earth.

Days, weeks, months, years afterwards, when we both grew gray
with spent skin and aches from tired bones; One day I awoke to find her
Lifeless beside me, lying with a cruel stress
Upon her eyelids where the powder used to crease,
Where I used to plant gentle kisses upon her flowered brow.
The bedchamber then began to lose its smell, lilac
And smoke grew thin and faint along the floors,
Even as her beauty passed quite away.

Upon a windy summit I stooped to pluck an aster
And watched the grass bow upon my hand’s approach.
This was the sight that called my heart to answer the lost question:
Why strive when love is gone?
Beneath crimson trees, wind wrapped me in a heavy embrace
As I built a small fire beneath the clouds, which watched
With great intensity the flames yawn in the weary sky;
Where I struck flint and shut out the troublesome noise of life.

From the strokes of heat, smells of lilac
And smoke roared back to life, dancing with wintry mountain air.
Tears did not fall, sobs would not come, because I still loved her memory
And always I would smell of smoke and mountains.

Addison Affleck is a poet, writer, and a “Romantic at heart.” Born in Washington, she grew up sandwiched between forests and the ocean, in the rainy city of Seattle, and has since lived in Northern Washington. Deeply engaged with ethnobotany, her work takes up animistic perspectives of nature and humanity’s relationship with it. Her published poetry and prose have found homes in scholastic literary magazines, the Hibiscus Review, the Raven Review, and others.