In early May, Lake Michigan will thaw
like the runaway bride asking forgiveness
it will pearl itself under the absent-minded splendor
of the Beltane sun,
like it does not remember the steel-toed lips
of Charlevoix men
against its cornsilk throat
and the last crack will be heard for years
the open mouth of the avalanche singing to
the untouching hands of two countries
like the snapped necks of finches
in a toddler’s heart
we will look down at its sudden plunge
from colour to forgotten floor, hidden beneath the heartsick laundry
of our anchorwaltz winter
cyan, the substractive hue
the coastguard will say
how the aerial shots, dizzying themselves in a spin
across the untouchable magic between strangers,
show nothing new
the shipwrecks, crystal and sunken in their cerulean grave,
have always been there
{What are your thoughts on the Rising Sun?
Three thousand bushels, potato sacks like iron teeth,
biting into Spring’s brazen wish
fourty of lumber
stowed in a steam-bitten hold
there is such a thing as a sudden and blinding storm
even among the peaceful parts of sea
there is no such thing as
unsinkable}
I once thought love to be
floodlights, the quick, heavy flash into
inextricable visibility, showing you
an entire cast of new demons
to name
but these?
The swimming ghosts, these algae-thick chests
are not new,
this thaw, this Spring
this angle, this wide-frame
this arpeggio of sunlight colliding
with the shoulders of failed affection
shows me simply the sunken truth
in the clearest light
I’ve ever known.
CarnivalDark 