By CURTIS BAUER
There is a bend to everything.
Edges melt into curves like winter
and then spring, snow sways from
white to gray, powder to crust
and too many dialects make noiseon these streets—slush and splash—
and inside the looking, a white
I can’t touch. No one can. Someone
who wants a myth proved needs
to trace wounds and feel every surface’s
cold skin. The glass of memory
is cold, but what is the sound
ice whispers? I play its recording
back on my tongue and it sings
wet trickle drips falling from the roof.
I play it on my ungloved hand
and it sounds so sweet I roll
up my sleeve, take off my shirt.
Unclothed in the thawing,
its noise falls loud, mutes my breath
in clouds. I am less body, depleted
profile, shoulder blade and leg. This
solid clears and sculpts me into a pile,
a mound of white in a sea of white.
Curtis Bauer is the author of three poetry collections: his first, Fence Line (2004), won the John Ciardi Poetry Prize; Spanish Sketchbook (2012) is a bilingual English/Spanish collection published in Spain; and The Real Cause for Your Absence will be released March 2013 by C&R Press.
Photo from Flickr Creative Commons
