Christopher Locke

Declarations

“So who saved me? And for what purpose?”
                      —Larry Levis

The week after Christmas
and the driveway’s salted
into black sheen, the edges
rumpled by snowbanks wetting
themselves like bodies stacked
in milk, stars popped and strung
between the dark’s cooling limbs,
emptiness like the hollow of your
throat before you cry I’ve failed
you again, always something, and
so I stand where the road meets
the river and think instead about
two friends, newly dead, and that
at least I am still alive, though
what life is this, my marriage
dissolving like an arbor of smoke
and me wondering how I got here.
At the latest memorial, Sean said
it’s like we’re cursed, death moving
shyly down the line and tapping each
of us on the shoulder, as if to dance,
which I guess it kind of is—a dance.
We both wanted to say it: who’s
next? But neither of us dared, and
there was a whole world in that silence. 
So now I turn back to the house
and see you through the window over
the sink, arms lifting in soapy confession,
the space between us made wider by
the fact I can tell you’re singing. 

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Christopher Locke’s poems have appeared in The North American Review, Poetry East, Southwest Review, The Sun, Rhino, West Branch, Rattle, 32 Poems and elsewhere. He has been awarded grants in writing from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. His latest book of poems, Music For Ghosts (NYQ Books), and a memoir-in-essays, Without Saints (Black Lawrence Press), were both released in 2022. Chris lives in the Adirondacks and teaches English at SUNY Plattsburgh.