Undressing Myself at the End of Autumn

Monday, July 15, 2013
Cold makes a candelabra of my lungs
at the opened window, blue on blue
 
behind an unfurnished attic of trees—
fretwork, winter’s glittering liens,
 
& I’m a child at the dusked crest
of Suicide Hill, snow scored with sled-tracks
 
shadowed by the mirror of lost day,
a blunt gold tare, low roof of sky.
 
I touch one icy runner to my mouth,
the salted socket of my shed tooth.
 
At that bruising abyss I could not say
what the world wanted from me,
 
but I felt its hold. I knew my bones
in their quilted swaths of wool, the stir
 
of my jealous soul, unable to see herself,
longing to disrobe.
Monday, July 1, 2013