Elegy with Lake Effect

A blizzard switched the ground for clouds

and made the county blind when,

blind, you tied your noose and dropped

to quell the rising pressure

of your body. I move by touch

through the blank meadow of heaven.

Here’s the front-walk of roof-ice

crashing, the driveway of what’s

underneath and splits: flashlight,

spines cracked, in puddle-ice?

Are you wind that stiffens leggings

on the line and doesn’t give

a damn that my gutters wail

and rip loose from their eaves?

Then I don’t give a damn either.

When I tear my shirt, when I

cut my braids off at the nape,

I’m only stockpiling beds

for summer’s goslings. When I

kneel in the snow and scream,

I’m chiseling all the lost books

free by striking breath on bone.