Cup of Snow

Statement—held 
till it melts—
I’m sorry. 
We’ve come to in a dark green house, 
under slender
furred eaves.

Far croak of the chough, 
wrinkle of bats.

The sun brushes the larch needles, 
sweat beads a tiny copper kettle—

it burns my palm, it is cold when 
I lay my palm on it.

In this room, three walls 

of loosely plotted novels.
And a window. I could watch you

in the stone garden:
the carp-fountain garbles 
its frilled vowel

as you swirl your fingers 
and raise a mist
of aqueous plant motes.

We stand facing each other, 
or we sit in adjacent chairs,
 
and all the while, behind heavy doors 
these spaces are seeding

further space.

There is a large walnut table, bowed 
beneath the fiction of steaming food. 
And there is a pale disk on the floor 
where a lamp stood, that we step around.

Read more from Issue 15.1.