Journal of Italian Translation

170
Journal of Italian Translation
someone is ringing without hands
The Snow
You with no fear of dying
how you dreaded winter
the cataract forming on the green wheated hill
ice on sundial and steps and calendar
it is snowing
after you were unborn it was my turn
to carry you in a world before me
trying to imagine you
I am your parent at the beginning of winter
you are my child
we are one body
one blood
one red line melting the snow
unbroken line in falling snow
Apples
Waking besides a pile of unsorted keys
in an empty room
the sun is high
what a long jagged string of broken bird song
they must have made as they gathered there
by the ears deaf with sleep
and the hands empty as waves
I remember the birds now
but where are the locks
when I touch the pile
my hand sounds like a wave on a single beach
I hear someone stirring
in the ruins of a glass mountain
after decades
those keys are so cold that they melt at my touch
all but one
to the door of a cold morning
the colors of apples