In Memory

cold weather seems to freeze depression
keep it alive like last year’s stumbling half-dead mammoth
hold it like a breath that’s six months past its time to breathe
a sheen from a knife inside a cloud of frozen mist

i would pretend i was warm inside this house this cold
thermal depression the numbness of these walls keeping the ice away
normal      succession      the next word is normal
like wood an end event until you see the rot the next spring

            you’ve felt the way i’ve felt for days
            hearts brought down in descant above an empty melody
            throbbing in memory      all the death this year
            robbing one sense of another the notes settled all wrong
            starts and pauses      stops      heaps like the cold pepper of ash
            strewn deep upon itself      numb hearth      not ice      not heat

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)