The wind comes warm as breath
and stirs me like laundry
on a line. Then it’s gone. Life
weaves itself together
from next to nothing;
it’s all these moments
I want, to take them in
before they’re taken away.
A patch of blue breaches clouds
the way green comes to winter
and the black of a raven’s
something I can hardly stand
the beauty of: unshadowed
or itself a shadow
untethered from things. It coasts
across the opening sky
on motionless wings
as if it too notices
a ray of light threading
its way into the world.
- Originally from Lowell, Massachusetts, Brian Simoneau graduated from Amherst College and received an MFA at the University of Oregon. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and their two daughters. His first book of poems, River Bound (C&R Press 2014), won the De Novo Prize.