I’m walking into the quickening blizzard
as if into a hunter’s dream—
the flint arrow through my chest keener
than earthly desire. Wherever I went
teeth followed me, relentless as the shadow
of the doe-eyed boy I thought
I couldn’t live without. Long ago, love
made all gestures of flowering
possible on earth. Now I’m tired of living
on the peripheries where the witch hazels thicken
as inkblots & the light over the hill grows
more distant year after year. Father, far
& reticent as you are, let me not be a memory
of blood & musk salting a wolf’s breath.
Let me be antlers. Let me be lightning
branching jagged into sky. Let me be sky
See more poems from Issue 16.2 by purchasing a copy in our online store. Digital copies only $5.
