Elegy with Lake Effect
A blizzard switched the ground for clouds
and made the county blind when,
blind, you tied your noose and dropped
to quell the rising pressure
of your body. I move by touch
through the blank meadow of heaven.
Here’s the front-walk of roof-ice
crashing, the driveway of what’s
underneath and splits: flashlight,
Nerf ball, Jack-O-Lantern mouth,
rope of bottle rocket shells.
Are you that spill of paperbacks,
spines cracked, in puddle-ice?
Are you wind that stiffens leggings
on the line and doesn’t give
a damn that my gutters wail
and rip loose from their eaves?
Then I don’t give a damn either.
When I tear my shirt, when I
cut my braids off at the nape,
I’m only stockpiling beds
for summer’s goslings. When I
kneel in the snow and scream,
I’m chiseling all the lost books
free by striking breath on bone.
Elegy with Lake Effect
The Nervous System Speaks
Introductions Reading Loop
Tracking the Muse