Dear Brasch,

For half a decade I scoured books,
lost in salt stars and broken bodies,
not knowing you ate the bread I begged for.

And now that the library’s
doors are closed and my own
angry hive of desire lies
dormant after a hard frost,
I find your letters
gnawing the hard edge of night—

pulling me toward some ecstasy
where death is a door at the foot of a mountain
whose peak I can’t see through the cloud.

Amy Leigh Wicks

Amy Leigh Wicks

Amy Leigh Wicks is the author of The Dangerous Country of Love and Marriage (Auckland University Press) and Orange Juice and Rooftops (Eloquent Books). A Staten Island native, she holds a PhD from Vic