HUSK 1.2

by Audrey Parks

is that
you can’t go back.

       Listen:
       flat-footed slap of flip-flops
              as your heart turns
                     re:               circuitous future
        unknown winding
        unknown future
        wanting

The joke is that
your men
       have merely been
              talismans
                     totems
              of hung-up
                  loves
                     strung above
              the absence of a path
                     like overgrown stars.
You walk forward
              on the sound
       of an old love’s whisper.

The joke is that
       darkness. You’re told
it’s your own.
              Listen:
       It is the sound of the heart leaving home.