Homage to a Missed Season

HOMAGE TO A MISSED SEASON / James McCorkle Tonight the snow melts on the roofs Icy water tracing underneath snow Thin like a fan opening, a creek filling again As though paying homage to a missed season Tonight the snow melts on the roofs The lovers have stopped hiding their secrets Their swatches of words settle like stray Debris sinking into the soft snow with Icy water tracing underneath Their words carried past the roof's edge into A city where birds will fly up in a delirium In the warm thawing mornings, each unbridgeable and Thin like a fan opening, a creek filling again The hope that dawn comes, at least, uncontaminated The daily bread earned, the streets empty And we are the lovers who have woken As though paying homage to a missed season The always missed place, a gaze that goes uninterrupted Across seas and towns and nights and days strung-out Like lights on a far coast where Tonight the snow melts on the roofs And we take up the yoke and begin again at dawn The slow count of what we are, the clothes on the floor 26 · The Missouri Review The sheets half-off, hollows where we've slept, and outside Icy water traces underneath the snow The ground exhales its still cold hopes Like those of old men looking for change dropped in the snow Or the buildings that become more empty while we love James McCorkle The Missouri Review · 27 ...