The Nine Senses. Melissa Kwasny

carnations). Winter Still Life (pomegranate drawn with the figures of a dream). The tiniest fleck of rock the wind tears off. I think of the stars. How can I? A man sets himself on fire to protest the war. A man is tortured inside a prison until he cannot speak. In our curtained days, in our walks along the railroad beds, constructing our alter egos, our additional force. Winter bouquet (rosehips, snowberry, spruce needles). Winter bouquet (oil of fir rubbed into my gloves). A famous Danish artist constructs a crystal sun and people queue up outside the museum to see it. It grieves and buries the heart, a throbbing stone. It lifts the heart, a rose stripped of its petals. What if the morning never comes? Deep shade the winter feeds in, our ministrations too close, tracing flowers, unearthly fruit inside the margins. And doing what, the winds unruly. Here, you say, bringing my gloves to my face, see as if the days will sometime lighten.

      Almost Ice

       after Morris Graves

      We left the house to winter, the book with only a few pages left to read. Most of the important people we had made time for. The snow bedded down like a herd of antelope between the tufts of yellow grass. And along the bank, the water slowed into a kind of lace. Moth plus. Almost ice. Barges grind against the pier. A sound with the sound of glass in it. A knife through frosting. What I like, you say, is that a whole beautiful day will disappear, and then part of a day that was not particular will take its place. The pace we keep, walking, light as ghosts. Sun circular and ancient behind a scrim. Like something from a myth, the one where the desert slopes are dug up, and a petrified forest is discovered underneath. White writing. The morning is quiet and blurred. The way strangers who love to read talk to each other. When the artist lived in the country, he painted the sounds of the night, inventing the invisible animals from what he heard.