I want to tell you
about the walk home.
The midwinter clouds in clear relief.
I was seeing things sharply
just for a moment.
A sequence
with no overlay.
The ruined symmetry
of bells, wet snow,
holes in the pavement.
The trampled leaves
fossilized in cobblestone.
Gloves abandoned
on a thick stone wall.
I saw a little girl pushing
a dog in a stroller.
I saw two white-haired women
walking arm in arm
I saw an audience
leaving the theater
squinting into the light
and I felt for a moment
the old body
inside my younger body
waiting to uncurl.
I felt how my knees would ache then
and I could smell the musk of the trees then,
when I’m old in December, walking home.
Everything, just as now,
only one shade deeper.
Molly Silverstein is a Jewish poet, grad student, and person. She currently studies at Harvard Divinity School, where her work focuses on comparative mysticism, contemporary spiritual care, and the psychology of religion. Her writing has been previously published in Maudlin House, Sheila Na Gig, and Five 2 One Magazine, and she has performed with the Juniper Bends reading series. Winter is her favorite season.
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