Winter’s leaving, in piecemeal increments
The sky has the tilt, of neglected volumes
That you thought you’d read one day
Blake and Howl and that exegesis
On the sailboat shapes of sundials
Teetering in monuments, cocooned time
On the verandah, in the darkening afternoon
Blue-grey ink in chatter falling
To leave pages raw as skeins
In Japan (I say) they have a word for unread books
(I don’t remember exactly what it is)
The intentionality as beautiful as
A cicada’s dream of spring
Shoots bare as nibs from naked branches
and petals, soft and veined and blind and
so many days, thick as loaves, drunk as hope
not yet read
not yet written
