anna karenina

sometimes i feel wonderfully close to her
as if her soul was embodied in air –
how fog appears against a sinking shoreline
not tangible, but more visible than invisible

other times it seems she has become a myth
her name tossed around like the title of an epic novel,
say anna karenina (on a good day)
— her story reduced to immovable, however glorious,
sentences on a page

it is unnatural when she feels that far away,
the distance claws at the back of my neck
as panic descends down the narrow tunnel of my spine

i’ll turn the house upside down
and my memories inside out,
frantically searching to find any piece of her,
perhaps stuck behind a couch?
or buried under blue balloons within my brain

but it is like trying to catch a shadow
without understanding light

i cannot force her here in this way
any more than i could force her here in the other

and she only reappears when i have seen what i needed to see
when i have grieved what i needed to grieve

when i have gone alone, where i needed to go.