Piled under blankets,
pigment greased thick
under fingernails – scrubbed once
or twice – her breath falls soft.
Fast as Nike, she slept.
Night crept darker still;
under what pretense
would light appear but dawn?
An hour forgotten, a day forgotten.
The memories fade and no witness
to bear this breath in or out.
Snow drifts. One hurricane
follows another, falls dark.
the un-decibel.
so silent it hums.
what isn’t.
right before the storm.
that falling, grasping, shhh.
when the mind has slowed.
the breath has caught.
a glacier melting not groaning yet.
not fracturing or breaking.
or crashing.
not sighing or even exhaling.
yet.
what lands between two beats.
goes undetected.
disappears when the foot falls.
So I write madly
ushering the words out of my fingertips
no need for rain like shard of ice outside.
It’s already cold.
I’m already imagining tea
and one of the quilts my grandmother
spotted in the bins at Goodwill
promptly forgot
and spotted again.
An aged mind
not like good wine
but a constant inspiration
about the tragedy of a life long lived.
So I write
consider the consequences
of particular observations
and line break to remind myself
that I was a poet once
or twice.
Whatever this is,
it is off the cuff
a reentry
but not a flourish.
Surely, I am pleased with myself;
homecomings are a pleasure.
Fire orange moon shine
light down on me, the river
we run away slow
1
Like the buffalo
into unforgiving earth
some mem’ries we lose
2
Ride again the horse
that toss’d its rider, but stopp’d
cold before the brink
3
We might run and die
or run into wind alive
grass for company
