I dreamed so long of relaunching,
body a life line, traced again—how hard
could it be? We go forward, limn grooves,
don’t we, every day in our anticipations
climb, pull in backdrops and scenery
so real we speak actual words
to the faces we find up here. Shadowy
half-seen. We are so used to want blowing us
gently over each moment’s lip, leaning our
eyes toward to be, we hardly notice the pall
straight ahead’s always strung between us.
Your fading voice, scent—follow, up this hill—
like some song I heard my way to
when I found you: forward,
again, looking fully
toward the life of ours
I was leading
I’m still losing
you into
To see your face. The first time.
A kaleidoscope rolled—
so many could be’s
settling there
all the same structure
and detail, hollow-etched
as yours. how it everpulls. Pulse.
Heavier than haunting. Closer to
promise gathering quiet in those soft rooms.
The corners of your eye. Fragments of future.
Flung. your face illuminated. your face. Open
Rein. Bare-skinned. Sung out. Uncovered
and waiting behind, begging me
looking forward
to look back
pulling me
to follow your lead, back:
the only form of
you I can keep
Ali Beheler’s work can be found in Tupelo Quarterly, ballast journal, Spoon River Poetry Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Willows Wept Review, and elsewhere. Her work has won the SRPR Editor’s Prize (2024) and honorable mention in the Rash Poetry Awards (2024). She attended The Kenyon Review’s juried Online Summer Writer’s Workshop in Poetry (2023) and was a writer-in-residence at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony (2022 & 2023). She teaches at Hastings College in Hastings, NE. Find her at www.alibeheler.com.