Long-Distance Sonnet

Here, fat raindrops shatter. There, it’s clear
and far too cold for rain. I try to imagine
Anywhere: a smoke-blind gare du nord
where stragglers climb into their red-eyed dream,
but I can’t change our silhouette to theirs.
You walk back home from work, and the same keys
turn the same locks. The morning paper’s thin.
You read it last week—you know what it says.
You and I want correspondences,
not eat-sleep repetition. Some routine
bloodletting of the cause beneath the is,
some wound for us to stick our fingers in
that heals, but seals us in its hidden scar,
so when at last the rain gives out, you’re here.

Peter Kline
“Long-Distance Sonnet” first appeared in Drunken Boat.