Elizabeth Lerman’s “Here”

It is darker than it was before and I feel so naked now, alone, suddenly, my back bare, unguarded, open and offering, because skin is so special it seems, and when it shows too much I somehow want to hide and strip at the same time, say something like here I am, showing all of me now, for those who want to look, to take or touch, but I would say, also, I am scared to do it, I am scared of what might be done and it is darker than it was before but the night is silent and, still, I cannot understand how it is ever that way here, and the wonder of it holds me as I walk, a soft hand on my warm skin, burnt now, from the sort of sun you don’t expect to feel in a city but there are so many secrets and I know where I am now, I know I am almost home, past the gardens, gates heavy and hot, the chickens, asleep in their coop, do not rise when I walk by, tucked in already and pressed so sweetly against one another. Here, it is so quiet and so green and the brownstones sit stoically beneath streetlights and I think, not for the first time, that really, I may never leave Brooklyn.