December

                            December

                                                         For Michaela

1.

                                                                  

                        A hare slips

        into scrub juniper. Sparse snow. Wind

                        whorls the ear. Music

        of the long night.

             Time of year when the self loses

                                                          grip.

                  What looks out of your eyes

      on these nights walking home from work?

 

Rio Grande Gorge, Near Taos, New Mexico

2.

               When I touch the side of your face, I touch

                                 the ceremony sometimes:

            A horsefly dives.

            Raven’s shadow crosses slick rock.

            Bleached juniper roots surround a flat stone.

      We wrote poems, read them out loud, passed

                                      the wind-coiled salted curves

    of strata’d sandstone, limestone, grey-green-maroon

         oxidation of iron, and ocean-side fossil-crush

                        of leaf and fern,

                                                  back and forth,

                                                lip to mouth, then

                back-to-back bowed –

                                            South, East, North, West -

   cities of the underworld on the distant broken cliff-face

                                                suddenly exposed.

 

East Alameda Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico

3.

            Necro-pink

            Duende-rose

            Raven-blue

The colors deepen to blood-orange to night

                                                     in the blood.

 We stand inside a map of veins

                                          through naked trees.

                                                  Last night,

          we were a room of woven roots.

 

4.

A raven sits on the Vitamin Cottage sign above us

                             

Glass doors open and close for no one

Wind ruffles his head feathers, black beak open

Voice like the scrape of a cold branch against glass

Prophet of the desert’s return

Our dark joy                                       

  

Notes

The "ceremony" in section 2 refers to our wedding ceremony, out in the Canyonlands country of Southeastern Utah. 

"Vitamin Cottage" in section 4 refers to a chain grocery store in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

  

Merry & Happy

****************** 

Upcoming in January

A new short story

in 

Interzone

(Britain's longest running - and best - sci-fi magazine)