The Queen

The figment is the same as the sadness sometimes.

Wild gold and dark red.  The color of snow under a streetlamp.

Or of smoke pluming from a house

under a white sky in the morning. The color

of a queen. I try to keep her, even while she is leaving

and even after I know she has left.  I shout,

“Are you there, are you even there?” meaning God

but also Liliana.  I want to ask her

which is worse: dying

or being dead.  And then I can see her floating away

as down a hill of ice.  With her she has one half

of my whole being.  She holds me high above her head

and I wave to myself like a flag.

"The Queen" is from To See the Queen (Persea Books, 2013) and first appeared in Hampden Sydney Poetry Review.