And all along the snow-danced road
ghosts peer from broken leaves removed;
I smile. Seeing you trod the bank
avoiding shiver-puddled crease. Embers
against mouse-hued sky, your curls speak true
to winter, true to me — this frost sensed
will never be from your ice-pools eye.
Flutter me, shake and shudder me.
Flurry me, wake and worry me.
Leaf-ghosts sandwiched breads of cold
You me unfold.
Branches are not so unlike my fingers, brittle,
still, scraping air on either side of
your face. Do sobs freeze before falling
From my lips?to yours; crunch the bundled
ground, cemeteries cemented under foot, in feet.
Burnt across cheek and over glaciers melting
me, smelling silent obscured death, and heat.
Flurry me, wake and worry me.
Flutter me, shake and shudder me.
Leaf-ghosts sandwiched breads of cold
You me enfold
in gold.
© 1996 by Halsted M. Bernard for P.J.L.
published in Birmingham Online (January 1997) and in Galápagos (February 1998)