Words Written Near a Candle

By Tess Gallagher b. 1943 Tess Gallagher

If I could begin anything

I’d say stop asking forgiveness, especially

theirs which was always

the fault mentioned in your condition.

Nettles could be feathers

the moment they brush your

ankle. At the same time: floods, earthquakes,

the various slaveries

hunchbacked near the fence

to catch your glance.

What is it to say that among the hired boats

we carried our bodies well, cracked

jokes, left the gaps

in our lives and not

the page? This far to learn

the boat does not touch the water!

And if this is goodbye,

it is a light nowhere near believing

and I am happy

and it is all right to make a distance

of a nearness, to say, ‘Boat, I have left you

behind. Boat,

I am with you.’

Source: Under Stars (Graywolf Press, 1978)

Biography

Poet, essayist, and short story writer Tess Gallagher was born in 1943 in Port Angeles, Washington, to a logging family. Her early years were marked by the rhythms of seasonal work, as well as the landscape of both the Northwest and the Ozarks, where her grandparents lived. “I don’t know how many children really get to explore vast amounts of territory like that,” she has said in interviews. “It builds something in you.” . . .

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