The Farewell

You might be able to grab the sea by the hair
and shake it like an old carpet, put a whole forest
to sleep just by looking it
straight in the eye, tie

the wind up with a piece of string and make it
march to your orders, easy, barely
a child's game in the playroom of words,
and the universe in his pocket merely

a marble, but to erase
a letter, a single one, from the cry that
she uttered when, burning her last boats
you let drop again at the threshold

her pale hand, that, no.

Copyright © 2008 Marilyn Hacker All rights reserved
from The Manhattan Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission