Maureen N. McLane
I think of you here
because I thought of you here
before. Otherwise
I never think of you
except on a summer drive
that echoes the drive
I took the day after
I heard you died
except when I see
the red skirt
I wore that day
the day you finally
kissed me
a red skirt
I now see
only in pictures
from a long-ago trip
to the Pyrenees
the skirt I wore
to your party
In the middle of the party
here’s death
is what I thought
when we saw our friend
lying on the bare road
by her smashed bike
She’s alive
in the Berkshires.
So many are alive!
More are dead.
Strange thing
to survive to discover
you will live
till one day it’s over
no more to discover
no more rounding back
to this ongoing living
avoiding till you don’t
that specific rock
‘Road / Here Now’ is excerpted from This Blue.
Chosen for FSG Poetry Month by Iza Wojciechowska.
Maureen N. McLane’s essays have appeared in numerous publications. She is the author of Same Life (FSG, 2008) and World Enough (FSG, 2010). She received the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Nona Balakian Award for Excellence in Book Reviewing. She teaches at New York University
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