Chanel Clarke

To Duel in an Empty Field

At dawn, we wanted

to come forth

on horseback with pistols,

but we couldn’t be

bothered and stayed in bed.

We needed to see

each other feel the day

ease into evening, lips colder

as the darkening hour made

our breath visible again.

Stay in your leather,

beautiful. Keep your wool

if you need it.

You are what you are,

one of us might say out loud,

and it wouldn’t matter who

because we would have made

peace with our symmetries

by then, and we wouldn’t care

so much about the noise

warming our skin. We could

nurse the noise into music.

After all, forgiving the body

is a matter of survival.

Sing wherever you are.

Be percussive, ridiculous, and brave.

Chanel Clarke is a Poetry Fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. Her poems are also forthcoming in Bayou, Anti- and Intersections.