AQUATELOS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty ... - Cornell University

7. ANTIPODES
why must we oppose our limits
the river freezing is not at fault
smooth skin easing over flanks
of lucent wax
colored daiquiri
sacrifice the tongue for a moment
taste so sweet it stings
to death, bee made of honey
summertime and white flames flare
underwater where rock encounters
difference in itself
wintertime and white flames leap
as if in vengeance impossibly granted
to branches, switches, twigs bent down
we yield presence to what snaps
the strings of our attention
stirs their hum in fierce choirs
like coldset inhabiting
what air imperceptibly was
seeming-gone air
quickfrozen, belittled by cold
into a slow kind of murder
winter frees the sight, makes neighbors
known, as after the flesh is stripped,
after the bones rubbed with ice,
something hidden may still move
what wouldn’t we give
for mere environment again, fish
who forgot the thawed lake
instead of this snowpack relaxing
over our familiar haunts
leaving profiles diffusing
into banks of calm
and voracious light
consuming each face that dares its gaze
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