Canon of Disassembling an Iceberg

How about this: first

I’ll jolt the gutter,

ache for its town

without mourning—

nothing is unfixable

in light of the inevitable.

Then I’ll taste the blood

you left on the letter opener.

You’re gone;

you’ve always been gone,

disregarding speed

limits on the tundra,

tearing perforated ice—

you’re an assassin

going after sedge, slow

process of lichen

deforestation

truncating the philosophers’

question, yet pruning

their terraces of syllogisms

and proofs.

It’s a brain-wringing experience.

If I could hear

the bones of the hunted,

feel underpinnings of hunger,

see plasma and red cells

pull apart,

then touching the place

you used to be

could inspire me in the night.

I wait for New Year’s,

for tundra to become ocean.

We’ll say, let’s screw

the champagne,

pop vodka instead.

December 31st,

you’re still gone,

overlooking the sedge.

Your email wants to know

my resolution.

I say it’s to towel dry

an entire submarine.

Pain turns

everything bright,

but anger brings

dark where I can see.

I prefer ire to grief,

indignation to sorrow—

territories I know

well into the reaches

of my own stories.

You won’t

find me there.

What’s light in your eyes

becomes darkness in mine.

Unseen, untracked,

I disappear.