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Hacking at Winter Going back, I'll grant you that, is a hairpin turn. We can't vault graves like horses hurdle a pole. When, exactly when, did thresholds of grief become a border never to cross. I imagine the hour she died -- clocks grew rust, the music stopped. Any page of sepia, reminders disappearing left and right to balance out the weight of wronged. When did feel decompose into this dormant, slaughtered noun. A stanza clambake has no meat but wishing you would leave your shell. My arms are tired; our luggage sits. Every luncheon is the same. I'm the eunuch, popping caps, flipping crepes, pouring wine, serving the silence a meal. Three days later comes a note that says "the brunch was such a treat." Sadness stays that back-seat fish wrapped in moldy black and white. I'd hack at the winter if you gave me the scrap of a reason to write. Called her smile a sliver in a swollen thumb. Tempt my shovel; talk to me. Ibids of an empty look, no odyssey despite my fire. You have made a flat decision to side with the mutable frost. Streets of Flags I don't recall another 4th where seas of U.S. flags bedecked a solid mile of road. The avenue is lined in cloth, a carpet to the wasted graves of those we dug and dug to find. Years before their stitches didn't make the quilt -- somehow thin accessory converts into a winter coat. Thousands of bends, hundreds of hands placed these markers on the rue. These are the tags of our shirts poking out from twitching necks that worry the world will serve them the meal of a subsequent bomb. We'll always sleep with this kink in our spine. I watch the eyes of other drivers dripping with the hailstones -- working ice dots into rain. Tears develop in their caves, the cool debris of waterfalls ribboning ten months of drought. NYC memories are cobwebs with their maps on fire. Our little town requires a fist. A clench that speaks -- a fingering of lily pads from wings of swans determined the lake is a crossable feast -- a spasm of pride arching the trammeled foot. This is a year aching for color after the ocean of ash. Ibids of Wish I've wanted for years to race in your room ten minutes before a steamy date, steal a cashmere sweater from your dresser drawer. Listen as you heard the creak of whim on wood -- watch you cross your legs and sigh that wistful gust -- prickle as you turned clichés: "Stain it and your ass is grass." I pass your picture in the hall. A photo of elegant curves promising that ornery alabaster moon would be a wafer on my tongue. Before I even realize, I'm glued to keyboards dancing on this nothingness. Pounding on the drum of grief as if your ears are pert and savvy, conches echoing the sea. I wanted your palms to fluff the length of my train. Help me slip the pearl button into loops just before the organ bellowed through the church. I've imagined you washing my shoulder blades arching at anger's point over a sadness you softened by touch -- a loofa expanding to tackle the meat in the storm. Thanks to death -- ibids of wish, odyssey blank. |
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Janet Buck |