The Fact

audio: The Fact
audio of Clare Jones's poem, The Fact

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Clare Jones

The Fact

 

      In the dark, the ears are sharper.
      A woman without a stoop is standing by a gate.
      She concentrates her energy on the focus of her gaze.
      Though in the dark, her ears are sharper.
      When memories crowd around her, she picks out one.
      Once, Orpheus walked in front of her.
      The cicadas stayed in their black velvet cases. Nothing stirred.
      When memories crowd around her, she picks that one.

      Dark or light, the act of leaving feels longer than returning.
      And the soil is bare. The grain is true. Lungs run out of air to lose.
      She used to think about the fact that he came back at all.
      He did, once. He did. The world is very small.
      And now he is up there, somewhere, uprooting a tree with music. A cloud
           is burning.
      The stones are growing soft enough that they could bruise.