ISSUE: Summer 2011
In some last inventory, I’ll have lost a season,
through the occlusion
of summer by another hemisphere.
Going there
the winter will toll twice
across the year. The leaves of ice
are manuscript
shelved on the air, and sift
fine as paper-cuts along the wind. I will go
to crippled snow
that rolls through crossings in its wheelchair, before the headlights
of early nights.
How glorious summer is to them
who have caught just a glimpse of its billowing hem.
‘Fifty springs are little room,’ an authority
in loss warns, but statistically
I can expect to own
ten summers, before the heights of blue close down.
Although I’ve gone
northwards, I will cross the lawn
at home—the trees and yard in bloom—
in the mirror in an empty room.
