A Blessing

A poem made from fragments

I wrote this in spring, and I’m putting it here for safekeeping

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I 

Let’s start over. 	

The days are getting longer. 
It’s time to take stock of salted earth.

I glaze my eyes until the sheets of ice are whitecapped waves 
A motionless tableaux
It’s too easy to call the scene I witness barren, but how else to name formless feeling 
The ebb and flow of tides grind to a halt 

In dream I divine, there’s someone below the ice 

I who have never known a city so cold
I who have known days of hot and plenty 

                                This becomes known as blessing 

The sun a hot seam stitched taught along my abdomen 
I find the empty space at the bottom of the exhale            hold 	 
until I locate the cavity of the heart 

Who comes to sit sentry, settled 
in the diaphragm’s echoing chambers 
Guarding against gravity's insistent pull 

Dreamt of that girl Sophie who only walked on tiptoe 
A doctor yanked her arches to the ground 

Make of that what you will — she lived in the suburbs, I didn’t know her well 

I have now been stunned for seven days straight and

What to say of the waves? 

Here is what I know 
I will walk down the street 	           Taste summer’s stillness
Round quiet corners 			           Tend to stark lines —
                                                                   the cut of the stem, a sway of a back

That there's clarity in the wine glass on the windowsill 
left to dry overnight 
pierced by the glacial morning 		

Marveling at what made sense at noon

II 

This body that has known love

This body that has known bloodlet

This body that has known from whence it came

This body that has known everything and the kitchen sink 

This body that has known trial in absentia

This body that has known no better 

This body that has known blessed beginnings 


III 

One day, flow 

                    One day, favor 

The week washes over you 

Let it 

chips fall where they may