Friday, December 13, 2019

JOSEPH MASSEY ~









Blinds





To listen

is to see



when the light

is a thing



felt in the ear —

it rings



you awake.




~






A dream's jagged

remains, what

morning absorbs.



Light, only light,

in place of nothing

left to remember.




~






Cliff face

shaded in

April snow

that fell

for an hour

overnight.



~





Off the highway

a stand of birch slants



above a vernal pool.

Sight slows to hold



flaked white

raked through



a stretched wreck of landscape.





~





A tree as thin

as your wrist



sprays

from the split



in a river rock.




~






A flag's reflection

dents the

water,



blurs

the debris,

mostly leaves.




~






When shadow

ingests shadow



and road clatter

thins into crickets.



When the notebook's

margins are lost



and language

sprawls. When



windows turn

brown, vacant



in their glare.





~





I return

to my body



attached to

a long vowel



stretched

between us.





________________
Joseph Massey
A New Silence
Shearsman Books
2019