CK Tower - two poems


Acquiescence

They say it is now winter in Michigan 
though she can't remember when it wasn’t. 
The useless sun hangs well over the Tropic 
of Capricorn: late afternoon suspended 
in gray. A rush of dry arctic rustles the blinds
rattles the window: a sound like the sea roaring 
against the glass. 
Great Lakes splendor pales
in late October. Off a distant coast, southeast winds drift
seaward over southern Italy. But here the air is dusty 
with old snow; she dreams Sirocco and steaming 
Mediterranean. 
Deep into midnight within the speechless 
expanse of black, stars flash like bits of broken glass, 
while the moon offers a sliver of conciliatory 
illumination: a shred of bleached light paying 
brief notice to a thousand blades of frozen
grass. An unexpected moment of elegance, 
or a promise to the courageous: 
one day she will cease waking to cold earth. 




Breaching the Distance
for d-

 “...half-changed into an elegy for all
     I’d known before, in candlesmoke.”
                                   -W. F. Lantry

The furnace bangs out a requiem mass
but these icy fingers tucked between thighs-
the last gracious repository, aren’t wed
to the caprices of the metal hearth.  While
breast knee and calf still serve, still peak 
bend and flex through December’s attenuated

hymn, memories of candlelight six hundred miles 
and eight months anterior, resuscitate the song
in other joints surfaces and curves.  Or a humid
voice rousing a body from mounds of silent 
comfort at nine a.m., when nothing else
compels accelerated pulse through limbs.  Except 

perhaps the sonorous tones of sigh flash sigh
as we breach the distance, find passage 
between golden stars.  And lying 
in a cleft of melodic symmetry, unleash 
their milky rivers:  an aria composed of duplicate
hunger- harmonies we’ve yet to sing aloud.  

previously appeared in
The Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks

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