the discipline of secrets

she’s not returning, she said, not as

a reed or star, having lived in a colony

of horrors, having kept the discipline

of secrets, and the patience of the first

step up the stairs, that deeper secret,

or the water stairs where lorca sat at

night, blind arrows arcing overhead,

sat there, with the caprice of eros,

the sufferance of words, something

akhmatova knew, having found her

balance at the edge of the grave, shaking

death’s rattle at the presence of contagion,

then, with an easy breath, stepping out.