Part One

We cheated when we painted the stars

and placed fireflies in the black ink

around our canvas-planet.

 

A half-sky hovered in limbo as we

copied and pasted the constellations.

 

Nothing we’ve made is complete;

no love, no star, no road through the hills.

 

We smile in mirrors with half our teeth

and laugh half-heartedly at the stars

we’ve forgotten are our own failures.

 

A moth beats against the screen door:

“imagine us beneath a whole sky.”

We put our paints away, kiss goodnight,

and hold hands in our sleep.

The Boreal Wilderness of a Content Heart

We must be further North than we thought.

Where, by the maps haunted with sea serpents,

living, exulting, dancing, tremulous mysteries

hold back laughter beneath every leaf.

 

Like a child playing hide and seek,

biting her tongue not to squeal with delight.

 

The cold grips every nerve in every limb with every movement.

The cold reminds us how gloriously alive we are.

The steam of our breath, twisting in an aerial ballet

leaping deeper, and deeper into this forest,

both new and joyously familiar.

Like a lullaby in old age.

 

The blues and grays of the mist, interrupted.

Swords of sunshine lunging from sky to untrodden earth.

Every leaf, swallow’s song and molecule of mist

 

is alive with silent, jovial anticipation.

Like the last breath before a dive into frigid waters.