Jill Mceldowney
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Jill Mceldowney is the author of the chapbook Airs Above Ground (Finishing Line Press) as well as Kisses Over Babylon (dancing girl press). She is an editor and cofounder of Madhouse Press. She is also a National Poetry Series Finalist. Her previously published work can be found in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Muzzle, Fugue, Vinyl, the Sonora Review and other notable publications.
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If I Don't Meet You in This Life, Let Me Feel the Lack
Now there is almost no sound when I imagine
how your body might look through ice,
dazzling ice refracted back to snow.
Let me sleep then
and dream of fish
or leopards or how every tree is a personality.
It is never about the sex
when you show up again—
backlit by the hallway light.
You don’t ask to come in, you just are
and the most romantic thing I will ever do is to fuck you
while I am on a drug holiday.
I mean nothing between us. The world has always been ending,
I am getting what I asked for
when I asked for
your weather. I would give my body
for an instant of lightning. All night I try
to be a better person. Not for you—
maybe because of you—before you
I loved
like a wild animal sees at night. I’ve been fortune told
that you will
abandon me slowly
like the cold pulling me through
the darkness or a confidence that leads me
but for one minute of fleeting life I put feathers on your birds.
The trail I follow is not of my making.
If it was the moon
it fell
from my hands as you sleep with your back to me.
The earth is taking its time,
is deciding how to kill us or how to change us—
I lay my hand flat
against the perishable harp of your spine.
All night I ask you why.
how your body might look through ice,
dazzling ice refracted back to snow.
Let me sleep then
and dream of fish
or leopards or how every tree is a personality.
It is never about the sex
when you show up again—
backlit by the hallway light.
You don’t ask to come in, you just are
and the most romantic thing I will ever do is to fuck you
while I am on a drug holiday.
I mean nothing between us. The world has always been ending,
I am getting what I asked for
when I asked for
your weather. I would give my body
for an instant of lightning. All night I try
to be a better person. Not for you—
maybe because of you—before you
I loved
like a wild animal sees at night. I’ve been fortune told
that you will
abandon me slowly
like the cold pulling me through
the darkness or a confidence that leads me
but for one minute of fleeting life I put feathers on your birds.
The trail I follow is not of my making.
If it was the moon
it fell
from my hands as you sleep with your back to me.
The earth is taking its time,
is deciding how to kill us or how to change us—
I lay my hand flat
against the perishable harp of your spine.
All night I ask you why.
Commentary
Jill on "If I Don't Meet You in this Life, Let Me Feel the Lack":
The title of this poem, “If I Don’t Meet You in This Life, Let Me Feel the Lack” is quoted from the 1998 film The Thin Red Line, a film that largely examines transformation, particularly the way violence serves as a catalyst for transformation. In my most recent work, I have been similarly investigating the way the body is transformed or transfixed by the violences and interactions of love, grief, addiction, loss. I am especially interest in the role grief plays in the transformation of the body: What is the best you can give someone you love if feeling becomes impossible? In the aftermath of violence, in what ways does the body feel differently? How does feeling change in the wake of loss?
In this poem, I wanted to try and understand how the processes of grief can alienate a person from not only those that they love, but from their own physical body. I wanted to explore the intersection of love and this grief because love is presented as an idealized all-healing and all-powerful force capable of “bringing you back” and “setting all wrongs right.” Yet, in the world of this poem, it isn’t, and in the end the speaker is left questioning if it ever was.
EIC Christine Taylor on "If I Don't Meet You in this Life, Let Me Feel the Lack":
Jill's poem is full of beautiful language—lines such as "for one minute of fleeting life I put feathers on your birds" are breath-taking. And couched in this beauty lies the raw emptiness that we're sometimes left with after having been hurt. Love doesn't fix that emptiness, and if we're being honest, we don't expect that it will. We know that "The earth is taking its time, / is deciding how to kill us or how to change us—" and all we can do is wait. Jill's poem offers the opportunity for readers to wrestle with these feelings through a sympathetic speaker.
The title of this poem, “If I Don’t Meet You in This Life, Let Me Feel the Lack” is quoted from the 1998 film The Thin Red Line, a film that largely examines transformation, particularly the way violence serves as a catalyst for transformation. In my most recent work, I have been similarly investigating the way the body is transformed or transfixed by the violences and interactions of love, grief, addiction, loss. I am especially interest in the role grief plays in the transformation of the body: What is the best you can give someone you love if feeling becomes impossible? In the aftermath of violence, in what ways does the body feel differently? How does feeling change in the wake of loss?
In this poem, I wanted to try and understand how the processes of grief can alienate a person from not only those that they love, but from their own physical body. I wanted to explore the intersection of love and this grief because love is presented as an idealized all-healing and all-powerful force capable of “bringing you back” and “setting all wrongs right.” Yet, in the world of this poem, it isn’t, and in the end the speaker is left questioning if it ever was.
EIC Christine Taylor on "If I Don't Meet You in this Life, Let Me Feel the Lack":
Jill's poem is full of beautiful language—lines such as "for one minute of fleeting life I put feathers on your birds" are breath-taking. And couched in this beauty lies the raw emptiness that we're sometimes left with after having been hurt. Love doesn't fix that emptiness, and if we're being honest, we don't expect that it will. We know that "The earth is taking its time, / is deciding how to kill us or how to change us—" and all we can do is wait. Jill's poem offers the opportunity for readers to wrestle with these feelings through a sympathetic speaker.
