Samuel Dickerson

Elegy for Last Night

Before, I saw you. Clear and dancing 
between bodies, the room hot with breath  

bleeding into your hair, the almost-black 
strands frayed on your forehead  

and along your shoulders, eyes closed,  
arms and hips swaying and a smile  

soft as silk sheets on a clothesline 
shifting with the wind. Is this you 

or what you took? Is there you without it? Maybe  
I wasn’t there either, but now 

in this light, you look gone, pale 
as this must-be artificial morning  

like a flashlight in your face. Repentance.  
No. Maybe salvation. Not 

by your stare, still and blank, 
hair darker in the day. Perdition 

then, I shouldn’t have made you  
walk into it. In this light you are 

gone. The same as what we lost, what  
we always lose, what we’re losing. 

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Samuel Dickerson is a student at Salisbury University majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and Computer Science with a concentration in AI. He works at his university's Nationally Competitive Fellowship Office, is an assistant editor for his school's literary magazine, the Scarab and is an intern at 149 Review. He grew up in Chesapeake City, MD.