Operetta

After Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle

You were never just one place. No,
you were always opening the door

into a different country, always
stepping into a new name.

You’ve been everywhere I want
to be. And I’ll never be just this,

not now, not with how I’ve known
these bodies—both young and old,

both bird and beautiful. So I can’t
say my desire. So I’ve broken

and rebuilt this. I’ve known each
shape my skin can take and I’m still

making your eggs for breakfast.
I’m still straying into fog and finding

my way home. Let me take a moment.
Let me take in the scenery, the storm

and the sea. The way it almost laps
at my toes and the way you say there

you are, sweetheart, sorry I’m late.
I’ve been looking for you everywhere.


Song Against Light and Silence

The closest city paints its face
across the night, lips splitting

into light and each sound that sings   with it.
The only sky I’ve ever seen is so full

of my father’s history. I remember
the skyline, the silhouette, the lighting

strikes different here and sometimes
it doesn’t touch

down at all. How to say we’ve done this—
to sing this throat raw. I’ve made myself

into every shape of light
you’ve ever shown me and shut down

my bright body.          In another country
the night sky stays

that way. We keep our history
quietly             between our lips,

our palms. In another place you’re gone,
you’ve left the weather

to its ways       and taken
as much of the moon

as you’ve been given. You teach
your fingers     to be civil, your loud

engine chest                to quiet. The storm rolls in;
don’t tell me    you’re not listening now.


Adam D. Weeks has a BA in Creative Writing from Salisbury University and currently lives in Baltimore. He is the social media manager for The Shore, a poetry reader for Quarterly West, and a founding editor of Beaver Magazine. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has poetry published or forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Poet Lore, Sugar House Review, Sycamore Review, Thrush, and elsewhere.

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