I FORECAST YOUR ELEGY
with a first line from Herman Melville
Others praise the soft eye
of the antelope, but the miracle
of your body is more worthy.
I follow the line of your hip, linger
where it tapers into thigh, the flesh
knit over fiber and filament beneath.
I hear the crush and crash
of your lungs, subtle elasticity.
Outside, traffic flows then shrieks
to braking, an inevitable crash.
Inside, your dark bones lie under
the skin just waiting to break.
And when you are taken from
me, the blow from the recoil
will pluck all the eyes
from all the antelopes
until there is no softness
left in the world.
Donna Vorreyer is the author of Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (Sundress Publications, 2016) and A House of Many Windows (Sundress Publications, 2013) as well as eight chapbooks, including The Girl (Porkbelly Press, 2017). She serves as the reviews editor for Stirring: A Literary Collection and teaches middle school in the suburbs of Chicago.