Remains the Dark

                            “How I wanted to be that sky—”  ~ Ocean Vuong

What is want, if not the forsaken
self’s inexorable reversion to self?

Just as your virtual arrival at the event
horizon must propagate only departure

this eternal leaving you actually are
is the mouth’s forgotten swallow,

is sustenance un-sought,
is your every trace & its antithesis

at once ceasing to mean.
Though emptied, you are no less

unfathomable: the black belly remains
the dark you’ll never grasp how to be.

STEPHANIE L. HARPER

“Remains the Dark” was published in the Spring 2019 Showcase at The Zen Space, among a gorgeous collection of poetry, along with haiku and *tiny poems* by Lynne Burnett, the late Ron Evans (curated by Robert Okaji), and others, expertly edited by and adorned with the original black and white photography of the brilliant Daniel Paul Marshall.