Polar

Like the last light

spring snowfall

that seems to arrive

from out of nowhere

and not land, exactly, anyplace,

so too do the syllables of thought

dissolve silently into the solitude

of the body in thought.

Like touching your skin,

or the first time I touched ice

and learned it was really water

and that neither were glass,

so does the jet contrail overhead

zip something closed in us,

perhaps any notion of the bluer.

Glancing sunlight,

my shoulders bearing the burden

or any theory why these birds

remain so devoted

to their own vanishing.

One store promises flowers

for all your needs,

another tells you

everything must go.

One river runs like a wound

that will never heal,

one snow falls like a medicine

that will never salve,

you the Earth, me the moon,

a subject moved in a direction

you desire, but for reasons

I believe to be my own.

“Polar” was published in Polar, (Alice James Books, 2005).