Blood Prism

Imprint

12 Imprint What’s gone is less than what’s not missing yet, the boy I was rusting in the snow, a sharp and empty field and he is spinning fast. What is it he was thinking? Why’s he always been alone when I bring him back, and seems from here quite happy, small against the white hillside? There’s a sled he’s dragged, half-way up, two pines like deep green coral, and the sky is thick. I am never certain why he’s stopped, walked off from the rest of memory out onto this page, his face wrapped loosely in a scarf that looks blue plaid, mostly. This is how he lies, straight up, though I can’t think of this as lying. What I can’t recall is how I get him home, curled up against the register, cup of cocoa in his hands. Was he lost, found crying on the slopes? Did Kathy and her father come on time, pick him up? I can’t connect these images and always leave him spinning there, mittens hanging at his sleeves. There aren’t even tracks. His boots, which I see clearly, haven’t marked the field and, even as he turns and walks, the snow is staying 13 * empty. Say I get a bird to cross the sky, the silhouette of my hands now. That won’t get him back. What’s left is what is always left, and why I know this isn’t simple fiction: I cannot move him from the scene by any slick device, the sled he’s got, the rope inside his hand. So he breaks up again, vanishes into the cold and wind. All I do is watch him fade, see the hillside drained of him, before it also disappears. How he’s gone is nothing but the next thing that I’ll do. Another pot of coffee, maybe not. And standing, undecided yet, this wooden chair. This white rug around my feet. ...