Cornflowers fringe the river like lashes.
I am lonely, you concede. Leaves
adhere to your back in mottled tongues;
air articulates your face with odor of roasted
apples, evening's end. In second-story windows,
girls in fine coal dresses undress, scrim of their slips
lemon light: thin as a bone-button that unfastens
the sky. Blue door on a black house, your body
like glass: a pitcher of violets, twilight, a blue fruit
abandoned. An ice skate floats by on the river's ear.
Do you hear the current's assembly: a comb,
a greenfinch, platic lids, an index finger, a fishing
lure, a mirror fragment containing the tumult of water
and bodies. Listen to the river's hiss; metal swallows
clip the air. Hunters in bright orange vests
approach you as though you were a ghost deer.
Simone Muench
Lampblack & Ash, Sarabande Books. Copyright 2005 by Simone Muench. Used with permission of the author.
