Winter’s last storm moves in and does not move, buries the year inside hours. Lights flicker; somewhere a hand lifts, turns a doorknob. In some unshielded room a chair is sat upon, a tale is told, is told again. I have seen, during the frenzy of seasons, almost-perceptible figures moving on the other side of weather. So towers are reflected in bedrock, willows doubled by their roots. The apocalypse occurs within your heart — you ache from a loneliness you can’t discuss while shadow-faces loom and thunder overcomes nights sleepless and full of wondering sleep, dreams sliding past your eyes, deciding your days. You hear a step; the other is there — perfectly recognized eyes across an unused path, hand reaching to hand, mouth speaking your soul. There is no lounder sound and yet — the voice dissipates in the turning of roads, the stopping of winds. Your other disappears. You search shores littered with another heaven’s stars, oceans whose river beginnings are lost. You must remember yourself.
This poem first appeared in Downtown.
