Still Life with Snow

 

It fell away, that slant of light

that followed us across the North Sea,

across a stable yard, hoofmarks

sunk into the frozen mud. The way the barn

cut the night in two, the hay steaming,

the chickens soft in the roost. I had dreamt

us before we ever came to be, clutching the cold

like a talisman against the bruising of old dreams,

against the inevitable age that would grip us

in its fulsome mouth, a dog in the stable yard

mawing its one mean bone. And what sky was left

was hollowed moon and piecemeal as a memory

of what I thought I could be if only love would

find me, traveling the Arctic of my heart,

gnawing at its white bone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Emerges

 

Autumn has arrived

and its mute foreboding

as if we, wise as horses, could sense

the coming quiet, and grow wild with alarm.

Everyone is weeping. The neighbors scurry

from their cars to their kitchens to boil their tears

in their teapots. The sun dreams of justice,

shrouded in her weavings, and there’s blood in the veins

of all the leaves, the way they keep falling in circles to lie at the base

of the houses. All the angles have begun to emerge-

chimney-stone, forgotten bird-bath, the corner of an old receipt

peeking from beneath a pile of ash. The sky ices over

and claims its impotence,

culling the rosebush before its buds even have time

to blossom and shatter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adeline

 

In our house, we always have

dusty window frames

glass jars of tea,

loose scree on the walkway.

Lately, too, small evidences of her,

sounds of sleep, quiet breathing

soft as moss on stone, the dim roar of the

monitor, a small sock wedged beneath

a door. Agony of any distance,

her life mattering more than much,

even in the next room, I dream of her

behind my eyes, my belly still holding memory,

the sky stripped of cloud,

her perfect breath always in earshot,

a weathervane. No matter. She.

Insistent, a dripping tap, running

in a rust line down to a drain.

In our house, she is near, as she was ever

in my cells, in the woodgrain of floorboards,

cradle of smooth gray walls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weaning

 

No longer cleaving, your shape in black and white

in the infrared light, the monitor box

set on the coffee table as I try to busy myself,

as I try to remember who I was before you were me.

Accustomed to your soft scent each night,

your body alongside mine, so small as to be

only an arm’s-length, your hair, just washed in our bath,

my vigil of putting us both to sleep in each other’s arms.

I’m told that this should be a small grief—

so small, like your tender body, the weight of you

scented with powder, grinning into my mouth, your tears

in my mouth, exclaiming the nearness of my breast

in your half-sleep—grasping it with both hands.

It was your sweat on my hands, your snot on my chest,

your mouth opening wide to engulf me,

that is the way I used to feel about love,

which you’ve revived in me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love Poem

 

Bright wind, a space inside,

empty like an o-shaped

mouth.  Too soft, the way the air moves

so easily between us, fingers wide against the sun,

a delicate shell pink at the webbing, moving filament,

moving the white curtains above the bed.

A nearness, without curiosity, without dread,

a long time bending, like wet wood,

the heart’s chiming bell, and yes, after years,

letting each other pass in the hallway.

Your body distantly,

distinctly scented, sheets wrapped

around a thigh,

or water running behind a bathroom door,

the next room holding you captive

with its thin white walls.