Directionless but no less human
within the cabin cold, I am now
becoming a new year,
which just means adding another age
to the ongoing twelve-year-old
still afraid to grasp a cord
and leap off the riverbank. Disaster
is stylized as a message
in a black envelope, and by contrast
it is not unpleasant
noticing the same meager tones resonating
from day to day. As an example,
I don’t need much more
than a rim of peach sunlight
over the edge of the lake
to distract me near-permanently.
I have been told to start thinking
about success, whatever that
is, but it seems greed is like a net
made of burning sugar: indulge
and you will get both stuck and hurt.
Trusting memory is as reliable
as trusting language, so I’ll write
this out: a few short weeks, and cold
will have devoured all the sounds
the moon makes through water.