D on’t ever forget
what winter used to be
that peregrine dog
a shy prancer who
would lie down in the street
showing his white fluffy belly

I love crunchy silences, the fleeting
sculptures of exhaled breath, the
elegant oaks in their ghost crowns,
refracting the rough blinter of stars

I remember pulling joy,
a warped sled on a frozen rope,
across the forest landscape, we go
out where chandeliers dance

Your naked hand shaking
fingers wet and red
heaving a cold comet
your laughter a wind chime

Don’t ask me again how long
freeze your belief into a simple formula
we see the truth written
we live with the hope
that the great soft machines will come soon—
drifting silent, languid,
lying down in the updrafts
letting sunbeams scratch their bellies
carbon-breathing
purifying
revising the sky.

Haunt me always
your white dress hung on naked sumac
for now I will carry
an acorn, a star, a mitten, a rope.