Christien Gholson – Mudlark Flash 143 (2021) – Poetry
Lament for Snow Blowing off the Roof under Grey Skies
There is loss it skins the world raw
Sloughs off tomorrow and tomorrow blots out the stars scrapes
snow-dust across snow-hives
Tears snow through snow a junco blown into last night’s window
Unfathomable loss no raven or angel eye can plumb it
I must forget how snow can peel back the skin
This is the loss snow-dust an illusion while it happens
Snow-dust that flies already gone
I long for raven wing on a fence-post mice who dream
snow-crust into existence packrat-cell beneath
floorboards double oval of deer prints in mud
while they are still here
I must forget the snow as it falls
There is loss indistinguishable from my death who stands
beside me wearing a late Paleozoic snow-cloak
When I go snow-blind there’s nothing left but voices on
the wind calling to themselves hunting their
former bodies
Look at how they ache and cry and skin the air
I must forget how all the cats in the world lift their open mouths
to catch the flying snow
This is the loss standing on the shoreline with my first child
watching snow fall into the sea
Whitecap-embrace of water with water thinking how many
times it will happen in the years to come and it has
not come again
Death’s hands are cold so cold but hold me so close
I have already forgotten the murder-cry in the magpie’s
blue feather
I spin with snow-dust become snow-dust for maybe the last time
To feel snow-dust blow through the heart into a cavern of masks
and stub-candles held by disembodied claws
Our hands and tongues and thighs become shadow-mutations
because of such loss
How can I forget the way snow collects on your hat your
cheeks eyelashes brightens your eyes
This is the loss words torn off roofs names without bodies
No I would become snow I would
I would sacrifice my body for the body of snow the slide of
a blue whale’s back against ocean ice the arctic hare’s
leap the snow leopard’s eye from behind snow-driven
stone No
I will not forget
Source: christien Gholson – Mudlark Flash 143 (2021) – Poetry
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