Back to the shallow pond sharp rotting scatter
leaf-skinned edge there where the ring
couldn’t be sunk far out enough
(far enough from shore)
back out the rock-toothed logging road
to the dark brook where it’s dropped mudsucked gold
(sucked under stones)
that’s another marriage lucid and decisive
to say at last: I did, I do, I will
(I did not, I will not)
Snow-whirled streetlamps under a window
(a bedroom and a window)
icy inch of the raised sash blizzard clearing to calm
outlined furniture: figured mirror: bedded bodies:
warm blood: eyes in the dark:
no contradiction:
She was there
and they were there: her only now seeing it (only now)
Bow season: then gun season
Apricot leaves bloodsprinkled: soaked: case closed
Memory: echo in time
All’s widescreen now lurid inchoate century
Vast disappearing acts the greatest show on earth
but here are small clear refractions
from an unclear season
blood on a leaf
gold trace element in water
light from the eye behind the eye
2003