I will wear it over the face

These trees in fog, not stirring, not calling: 

How insistent they are 

that they’ve been here all along 

holding their tangible emptiness in their arms. 

I admit it, I was wrong. 

Here I stand, admitting it. 

Like the mistress of the rich man 

no longer in love 

swallowing the pearls he gave her 

one by one: 

I was wrong. 

But how I walked it—tenacity, my little dog—so 

far and for so long. Walked 

my wrongness all over the world. 

Dressed it up. 

Showed it off. 

But that’s all over now. 

Now, I am a woman who realizes she was wrong. 

And how wrong. 

Now, I am a woman who would— 

No. 

Just throw me a veil. 

Like them, I will bear it on the landscape. 

I will wear it over the face. 

[Laura Kasischke {1961- } “Trees in Fog”, from Space, in Chains]