Helena Mesa

First Year Gone

In the dark, I untie the knots, my fingers
loosening each familiar row.

I’ve come to think of this unloosening
as stilling time, as undoing change,
but still, time pools light. No matter
how much I unravel, light pools and you—
you remain as far now as you were
when I first knit these rows.

This morning I drape the shapeless garment
over my head like a mourning veil,
the woolen veil heavy,
woolen yarn pilose from the
knotting, unknotting, its fibers
scratching my lips. You’ve become
a dream, my lips tasting only
damp wool, an ocean bed
drained of seawater, its kelp
drying in summer heat—if only I could
cross the dry basin
before storms flood the ocean once more.

Helena Mesa is the author of Where Land Is Indistinguishable from Sea (forthcoming from Terrapin Press) and Horse Dance Underwater, and is an editor for Mentor & Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.