Light, Another Light, and a Different Light

by Paul Dickey

Photo by Brian Michael Barbeito

Light, Another Light, and a Different Light

She was all I had wished for. 
Her bones circled the light with flesh 
in a way that created sweetness 
and convinced me of eternity, 
though I knew she was not 
of this light, nor of our ways.  
She was other, lived by another light. 
We on the other hand were all thing –
the sweat of the field, muscles 
lifting the dead weight of an animal 
into the back of the truck. 
I did not know if she could bear 
the truth and fruit of a hard winter.  
But out of contradiction and paradoxes 
came reason for us to marry, 
to grow fruits and vegetables near a house, 
in time to contribute to the population 
of the nearby city, live years on a lonely farm, 
pluck chickens with no longer delicate hands. 
She spoke often of a word that sounded 
like “love.”  Perhaps it was love. 
Towards the end, I sat beside her 
while she took up a new occupation 
she called pain, and she returned 
to her old ways of sewing and reading, 
but in a different light.  

---

Dad on the Front Porch Swing

In the dusk after his legal work, 
he’d sit on the swing a few hours,
watch the sun go down, balance 
a book on his knee, and stare off

at the street light on the corner
for no reason that made sense to me,
though sometimes I’d swear
he’d whisper a name. Not willing 

to share in his darkness or his light, 
I’d wait inside at the window 
for him to get himself up to retire 
to his private study not saying a word.

I would then go out in the full dark
and sit on the swing myself.

---

Picnic

We were in flesh and mind, 
married within in twine and coil. 
Rope burned our hands
in the tug-of-war. Our goal: 

to move each other 
off their mark. Both sides 
were falling, laughing at the sport 
to avoid a softball slide. 

No one gained a foothold. 
We would sway, 
two feet forward, two back.
We wanted hard us to stay.

She tried to hold on, though 
I was busy trying to let go.