Prescience of the Cold

Optional soundtrack: Prescience    


East Bluff, winter, Devil's Lake, WI


Green Lake, WI

cold fires


these are the hard edges of enslaving waters,
voices unsinging the names—
strangled cries of ravens bubble up,
drowned in sea soil, black feathers soaked white

these are the cold uncertain flickers,
banked old spines of breakback islands—
crematoriums of untasted meal,
cracked by hungry rain

these are the fruits of winter,
snow cakes ringing as they strike—
unplowed ridged earth, sterile, dense,
burned and smitten by steam, night, cold

these are the harsh unfettered breezes,
knives howling like rape—
broken bones litter the plain,
black stones polished to pits of shadow

no hand unforgets them,
no lover’s touch, hesitant, igniting,
no living breath through stone mouth seeps,
no eye envisions them, tearing—
the hearth fires, they all go cold, untended,
the islanders, they all walked through these gates


Janesville, WI