Nameless Unearthed

So I’m thinking of you as
an act of god: divine
               lightning that slams down and
inks a tattoo up the trunk
of a tree; some
                permanent mark
                of almost destruction.
Or you as something
nearly forgotten but
               brought to clarity in the image of
someone turning or the
smell of caramel
                starting to burn, sugar
               crystallizing after
               it melts and before it
jumps to flame, or the
taste of under ripe pineapple
so tart that it makes my
tongue ache.
And you in the form of
a poem that I will never
be able to put down in
words but will imagine before
               I fall asleep;sentence
               imprinted on the backs
               of my eyelids and
the letters group together
like piles of fallen leaves or
               the dregs of tea that I
could never find my fortune in
                and I will blink them
away until I’m only
                dreaming and there will be you
               running ahead of me
               until we both
are gone.

***
Chloe N. Clark is currently a creative writing major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has poems forthcoming in Verse Wisconsin and Diverse Voices Quarterly.