Spring: The North Shore
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Chilly gods are dropping crutches off
inside the pines, elk and sturgeon,
thundering mares with human eyes.

So the hatching leaves, in full sun
after months. The light testing hooves
against my eyelids, finally exploding.

In this flesh I have, full of winter
ink, sooty spirochetes that whisper
through the skin around my arm,

a spit of nothing visible, tiny comet
swimming out. I raise my hand
to catch it back, but stop. A lifeboat

loose—rope snapping through a pulley—
slapping hard against the water
swallowing the ship. Who’ll survive?

All of us? The last dumb torpedo
nudging softly into sand. Purely dark
there, worms are growing, leggy plants

near vents that steam into the ocean
above churning magma, sun-made tea
our mothers drank. The word at last

gotten out, the small talk, flowered
day that saves us, every one. No more
the path we took across the ice

turning through the forest into here.
Now the trees take off their heavy boots
and whisper this—Mayday, Mayday—

this static divine, this kissing wind.

 

from Rain Through High Windows by Edward Haworth Hoeppner
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