Noa Saunders

Shepherd

After a wildernight full of darlingest Rilke, you come, desperate as a beggar for rest,
to a bench in Denney hall. You ask me to stay while you sleep.

Curling yourself, hands kneading between knees, a remora against the belly of the wall,
you left this place, you fell away.

I cannot finish my work. Noon light skims the window’s whale rib, dives into the hall that we are
slowing, letting a far-off muscle pump its breath along without us. Noon light

radiating out from the wide green where there is a shepherd of some kind
trotting after a master

who twirls every few steps to check the dog’s fidelity. The dog glides through its resilience:
grass and spit forge with the tongue

as dog tongues do, eyes fixed on the guiding star. The boy
could have been a mile ahead. Of course,

you do not remember this. You awoke surprised that I would still be here
at your reunion with the world.

You loved it, loving me.
My friend, I looked down a barrel through you and I saw nothing

but me.
Is there a body I would not keep? A light I would not take in—?

Light is never a metaphor, writes one of our favorites, praying.
And neither is the work of the eyes.

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Noa Saunders is a PhD Candidate at Boston University, where she teaches poetry, film, and writing. Recent poems can be found in Ninth Letter.