Plate 5.

Falling asleep by a living room fire,
Bentley’s arms hold open

 

an album of snowflakes.
Your thoughts have brought him

 

here, having trudged across
the night’s wide

 

aperture. He’s telling you
it’s not true so many words for snow

 

fall from arctic
clouds: it’s just a traveler’s

 

misunderstanding, and having spent
too long in such wistful

 

woods, he’s tired of those
empty countries.

 

His body, slumped in his chair,
looks as fragile

 

as the snow in his pictures.
He could be thinking of summer,

 

how so little
falls through that season,

 

or autumn, perhaps,
with those countless

 

leaves, the forest’s
reliable precipitation.

 

As he nods off, you picture
him as a single

 

white flake, alone in the sky’s
empty darkroom.

 

You picture him
held above the stop bath’s

 

lake, in the dictates
of downward migration.