there is a pause
at the final turning
of November,
before the season
firmly closes,
that may be entered
if the juncture
between foot and path
is timed just so
there stillness rests
in cool absolute –
a mantle of calm,
a lesson in breath
© Sarah Whiteley
you were new
as buttercups
in April,
silent as a spill
of church-light
on the grass
though I felt it
in my own throat –
your breath
and that sweet,
augural hitch
as I passed
© Sarah Whiteley
before dawn, I curl myself
into a single cigarette
and forget for a moment
that I am anything other than
lips, than smoke, than
the act of exhaling
when I write such things,
I am shifting the silences
into a semblance of meaning,
wrapping words around the hours
too late to be called night,
too early yet to be morning
and I am grateful for
the hard end of the bench
I press my back against
while I wait for something –
anything – to progress
beyond the gray plumes
that loop the air before me
© Sarah Whiteley
ebbtide 