Winter Amnesties

The Effects of Myth at Two below Zero

58 The Effects of Myth at Two below Zero That snow spanked on the winter pane, it’s like Sirens slapping their tails against the rock, A come-on that makes the homesick sailors think Of women primitive enough to beat their wraps In a dark stream steaming from the jungle, and sing About the one who got away, a hornpipe tune That sticks in the rigging and the stacked decks, All those ropes and poles and pins, and a gangplank Going over the side, a little wobbly, but still How else can we get from here to there, there Where a half-nude half-fish in her seaweed wave Sucks on a salty finger to test the wind. It’s screaming out of the north tonight, a whine, High-pitched, that calls the dogs in before they freeze, A siege of snow, a white horizon only the blind can see. Inside, we’re all sick, and none of these stories Can stop the storm—the old stories that keep Seducing the dead in the worst weather of the invisible. ...