Tania Pryputniewicz

Crows bordered the seams of your leaving,

the timed spigots of the sprinklers
spattering the collards of the student gardens.

Crossing campus on a bicycle that night
in the mist without a light, I knew it futile

to follow beneath the downy egrets, undisturbed,
in the tops of trees, all creatures—and you—

so deeply housed in their separate worlds of kin,
muffled but solaced, like the damp echo

of Bibles snapping shut, ions in the air
beginning their alignments with the coming

storm, the teeth of another girl’s zipper
un-notching in your hands, morning’s hurt

approaching; then, the rain
in her hair and in mine.

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