June 2017
Michele Stepto
michele.stepto@yale.edu
michele.stepto@yale.edu
I wrote this poem six years after the sudden death of my first child, when he was a few days shy of his thirty-third birthday. Thinking about it now, I can see that the poem is like a spell. It seems to be trying to name the places where I last saw him and in that way conjure him back into being. It doesn't work, and yet it still seems like a good idea. Language engaged in the high-wire act of mourning the dead always seems as if it's about to work.
Behind You
I see you sometimes
as you were our last time
together in Barcelona
walking with Anna
ahead of us down
Carrer Padua or Vaillirana
your arm draped loosely
across her shoulder
with that elegance
you grew into as a man.
Slowly you turn to look
back, smiling a furtive
smile that came to you
late in your life
after you learned
to be kind. And there
we are behind you
following through the streets
of this city you love.
Did you think we were lost?
Later in dreams
you wait at the corner,
just you, and hold out
your hand to me, just me,
in a new city of endings
where everything is quiet
and you are quiet
because the dead do not speak
nor is there sound
in the place they inhabit
where it is forbidden
to say once more, just once
more and foolish to speak
of the real city, the sudden, living
city that contained your voice.
© 2017 Michele Stepto
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