Nostalgia

Hands are touching.
You began in cement in small spaces.
You began the departure. Leaves restrain. You attempted the departure.
A smile in sunshine, nostalgia.
Beneath shadow of shadows of Columbus the Navigator. Waving farewell.
Street, shadows.


I have lost my detachment, sparrow with silver teeth.
I have lost the doves of Milan, floating politely.


                                                 Recognize me, I shall be here, O Nietzsche. 
                                                 We have skipped down three pairs of stairs,
they are not numbered, they are oddly assorted, velvet.

                                                 Recognize me in sunshine.
Bulletins permit us to be freer than in Rome.
Castles perched on a cliff.
Filled with pears and magic.


                                                           I am not detached,
bulletins permit us comb, fish of silver.
A part of the tower
beckons to us.

From The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest (Wesleyan University Press, 2008). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.