Winter

Winter Au petit jour naissant, nous aperçûmes le Japon . . . "In the first faint light of dawn, we glimpsed Japan ..." From late summer motion to silence, dawn through dusk the sleek Bullet Train propels me from you, my body the nest of strangers, the sleepless rest of duty-free cognac, Greek cigarettes, American colognes, a man who takes pictures of your mind. "Ma yoku kita kureta," you say. Yes, I am good to you. I leave long enough to make it seem so. Another New York weekend. Cleveland, London, Seattle; dark green fields of rice turned syringa black with ice, the ugly temples of suburbia. Hard rails break road's snow from home snow, toxic snow, some child has crushed an angel into whiteness, this lost place is blessed, This other front door of mine. Softly, in his cold, mist-swept carriage trots the thick, slack body of night, treading like festival the once-gold bar of heaven. My hair brushed-black. Long, unshorn, slack the way you like it hanging through my beard, liking pain God himself could adore: eyes green as leaf ice, apple-veined whites — simple, pure colors of wine glass, old fruit and frozen air. You want a miracle, you say, divorce. Outside. Your dog wets the angel. The child priest is unconcerned, her intelligent face bathed in TV light. A cold western moon sheds thin orange flames through two worlds' charms: not space, airstrip or gulf keeps these charms pure, I keep them pure. I crush my own angel into burgundy carpet, bless this place, that place, one of weeping—the dark sea limitless — the other dropped between us like a Sophoclean mask. Sean Brendan Brown Washington State University 53 ...