the wind is a mouth a biting mouth a glacial tongue
at the end of your tundra lung. it is the last cling of the maple
stragglers, flint thin, don’t float, don’t drift, don’t know
where they’ll rot come one spring or another. though not
declared for another month, it’s winter. it’s grieving season.
and grieving you is not wind but glass, armonium or harp,
with its
reliable cat-sized paten of water besides. and each glass
(wine maybe, and brandy) is a different kind of full. it’s tips
of fingers, it’s lips. and each are mesmerizing to stand
beside, to wait beside, like the posture and the gait
and the stride of a mother bird feigning
not the noted broken wing but life entirely. the float
the groan the still vibrating tone of the inside of your throat,
intubation raw, must have been some come-true prophecy
in tissue instead of lace, you know, how the women
from the Old Country could tell your life in the pattern
they tacked to the pillow, each going in and over and under:
a road a boy a forest…I bet you knew your own future
by heart, and like a touched glass, once the vibration is
lit with the tips of wet fingers there’s no stopping. it’s
a black ice ride. it’s
amitriptyline and morphine. it’s a bed of
stars.
it’s the way you tip your head back into the dark. how
it’s all glass. how
it’s flaking lips. how the chap and chafe
of yours, the raw meat at the side of your mouth,
and your tongue is your only hand left in the world. and that one
left-alone-leaf after the wind is through. After the mouth
closes and it’s still there, and will be all winter long.
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