space between us

 

 

space between us

 

what lies between us

            rooms    doors    streets    towns

an accustomed space

 

some words left laced

            with intimacy or tattered with regret

stretching backward and forward

 

small lake at midnight    we were young

            massive spillway at dawn   

tannic waters of Louisiana bayous

 

scrawny egret perched on a dried branch

            trees     their meager green casting

brittle shadows in brackish water

 

still as glass    a dam   a bridge

            we have been here before

we have come too often

 

our words remembering too much

            or not enough           

what we have said

 

the vows we made

            all the lovely meanings

a space we shared

 

now windless and without sound

            nothing moves in the still air

still a little silence spread out

 

so we may hear each other

            something     anything

moving between us

  

 

Cordelia M. Hanemann              

  

Cordelia Hanemann is currently a practicing writer and artist in Raleigh, NC. A retired professor of English at Campbell University, she has published in numerous journals including Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Southwestern Review, and Laurel Review; anthologies, The Poet Magazine's new anthology, Friends and Friendship, Heron Clan and Kakalak and in her own chapbook, Through a Glass Darkly. Her poem, "photo-op" was a finalist in the Poems of Resistance competition at Sable Press and her poem "Cezanne's Apples" was nominated for a Pushcart. Recently the featured poet for Negative Capability Press and The Alexandria Quarterly, she is now working on a first novel, about her roots in Cajun Louisiana.