Even if I don’t see it again — nor ever feel it

I know it is — and that if once it hailed me

it ever does —

And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction

not as towards a place, but it was a tilting

within myself,

as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where

it isn’t — I was blinded like that — and swam

in what shone at me

only able to endure it by being no one and so

specifically myself I thought I’d die

from being loved like that.

From Marie Howe

Marie Howe is the State Poet of New York. She teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College.