Annick MacAskill

Hymn

Your pale hands against the background
of your bedroom, their existence outlined
and guaranteed. Always wary
of the silence around you, the house’s cold
stupor. It was winter, eventually.

Are you living yet? Do birdcalls hold
anything like weeping or are they
still annoyance? Books ordered
along the windowpane, where their backs grew damp
with waiting. Your sister was next door,
pretending to sleep.

History says nothing about this.
The days are long. They were longer,
then. Now you move the furniture.
You pay the rent.