the question, always the same,
and the answer is that there are
so many blessed nowheres
she says she’ll have to find me
when I finally get that car,
when I finally succumb to go
she knows that I can write about birds
for only so long before I myself fly –
after so many years feeling
stuck and prayerless
the answer isn’t to find me
or to seek anything anywhere –
but if you begin to look for me,
try roundabouts nowhere
© Sarah Whiteley
nowhere seems a good place to go –
the sort of place where you could dip your feet
in the creek and finally come up for air
where the silver underbellies of leaves
roll upwards to welcome the rain
where the first creature I might see
might be a solitary raven
and no one but he would even attempt
to talk to solitary me
nowhere’s as good a place as any
to look for the things that don’t ever
intend to be detected,
which is all right since nowhere’s only ever
in the looking and never in the found
© Sarah Whiteley
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