Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.
Presence
By Muriel Ciolkowska
From “Tonight”
YOU. Your presence. Why can I not dip into your presence as I dip into sleep, clasp it and bask in it? How hold it? How savour it? It is more than I wanted. And less.
Now you have left—you, in whose presence I would steep, around whose presence I hover like a gull over the lake. And, ere I have tasted it, your presence is no more your presence.
You have left. You have returned to me. Your presence no longer disturbs me from you.
