End Of Summer
It slips through us a parade of delicate dead women that carry the sun in the August sky a carcass singing in the compost fire invites the worms to burrow deeper a frost will come aphids frozen on a night blooming flower your eyes the untouchable pools of mercury bend the world into a curved mirror it slips through us a copperhead in the autumn leaves call that living the trees become mere shadows soon we will burn them to feel what was lost
March
The ice harps whine from a muted birth from a high hill I wait for hawks returning but what passes over in this sky is a purgatory of sound it is the end of winter and it burns like salt on the ice a stone prairie is under my feet the many clouds I grow from devour my shadow and for weeks now I will feed their alien hunger
Being Away On Tuesday
Jays in the maples scream as I drink my tea there is no way to explain my hands everything is a mystery I’ll tell you how the clouds gathered and broke I’ll kiss your hands it is futile your white fingers are warm are cold like clouds in a sun squall the light in the snow field gives me your pain I move my eyes ever so slightly and you are gone forever
