The Landing

by J. D. McClatchy

Through the blinds, it must have been the searchlight I saw

That silvered the woodwork. Step by step, its shadow was

Measuring out tonight. The climb itself has become a cloud

That thickens with the effort. I’d look up if I could.

Three lines erased in the address book. The thumbed pages

Of those last weeks through which the half lit end still gapes,

Unwritten. And what I miss goes without saying. Has

The explanation even there been brief as a flame and its ash?

I speak to the air that takes these things finally as its own.

Tell me who that is beyond the stairwell’s next turning now.