ALREADY

Touch me in the night of my body.
Where the wind can’t get in.
Where the flowers are layered rose petals.

Already I have loved you, have left you.
What remains is that which cannot be spoken.
The other day I heard a wind speak your name.

The willow’s branches seared my arm
as I walked where we’d once walked.
I remember you because I cannot forget.

Already my loneliness is dark with grief.
Nothing remembered that can’t be retrieved.
I think your hand was beside me in my sleep.

Already my body is a homecoming.
I’ll wait on the front stoop near the lilacs.
In the distance your footsteps grow louder.

Dianna MacKinnon Henning is the Founder/Facilitator of Thompson Peak Writer’s Workshop in Janesville, CA, and the Area-Coordinator for California Poets in the Schools and creative writing instructor in Grass Valley, CA. She also served as poetry teacher for Lassen County Schools facilitated through California Art’s Council grants. Henning’s third poetry book, Cathedral of the Hand published 2016 by Finishing Line Press.