EARLY MEMORY OF AN ICE STORM
Stairs moving under ice like fish.
The things concrete is
saying into the cloudy
__________________________thumbnail
_____of Glitter. A sound like hard blue
leaves sewing more jaws
_____tighter.
It looks like a metal button trying to suck
__________another metal
_____________________button out here,
__________the white ostrich neck
__________of an eyelash
rubbing rubbing. A sound comes from
the insides of branches watching.
That’s how quiet the red shoulders
__________of a sweater are.
______________________“Light curls,
______________________very light curls.”¹
__________
¹ Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons
*
ANDREW WYETH
i.
rural rosary beads of sweat
ii.
pollen yipping
several stories up
iii.
rings
in the chair’s back
after your voice moves
out to the fields.
iv.
the wool blend around him hollering hollering.
v.
read this field.
i want you to beat me
to the end of it. to the dark spot,
where a saint
slipped breath
into a red balloon animal.
vi.
i just wanted to pet his face
with a cake.
vii.
where your voice,
faint as a fingerpaint,
the eye-
lashes of a mouth, still
whipped
the horses
along.
