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To Emily Bronte- 
Eleven years old and sunk in the red velveteen 
chair at the Fox Bay Theater, I absorbed 
the raw sculpture of Penistone Crag, 
bracken and gorse, the peat 
blanketing the Yorkshire moors. Heathcliff 
with his sea-green eyes, black cape swirled 
around him, how tall and alarmingly 
handsome he looked. 
At Catherine's grave he cried, you wrote: 
I cannot live without my life, 
desire held hostage in his eyes, 
my heart held stunned in my chest. 
Years later, I return to your words; 
travel to the stone- 
flagged floors of your home; 
your desk-box saved under glass, 
its lining worn, purple velvet 
splotched with red sealing wax. 
Walking the rocky footpath towards swells 
of purple heather, I remember the words 
of the local stationer who saw you 
returning one evening: her countenance was lit up 
by a divine light. I imagine 
I hear your skin 
brush mine, whisper what you know: 
the silence, the stars 
that burn through the page. 
Hone the hours to their core-you might have said 
wind and poem, passion and moor. 
Andrea Potos 
[previously published in Poetry East] 
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