Crows in the Morning, Crows in the Evening

96 Crows in the Morning,Crows in the Evening Christien Gholson Sunset snowclouds white-out Niowat Ridge: What was sunlipped is now forgot, gone down a crystal hallway of snow-mirror drifts snaking over black shine of reservoir ice, braids of snow dust shocked up and over the concrete dam, sails body-flung spread crazy as the crow’s fight with the wind, wing over wing, turbine spun black banking in veils above the ghost-tin of an ice creek bed, thin as moonlight, thin as a voice made of snow melting against the dome of a broke streetlight someone says “begin” but we can’t tell where the voice is coming from The shed door’s loose, bangs against the shed wall, snow across the roof, so many blankets, chiasmus of bluelight loops from the top of my skull down my spine, between my legs, yours, up through the middle of your body, your hair, arcs into the zenith of my head, like the prism in a lone cloud I saw above a pine ridge on the bus yesterday, a shattered sun spread smooth as the marine inside of an abalone shell, same as the inside of the mind when it’s turned inside out, exposed to light and outside it’s desire in the shape of a leaf frozen in ice, broken off from the sing-edge of a creek bank, water-moil black beneath the covers, slow melt sheets over thumbstone, suncracked grain rockjut and jutrock over and under juniper twist calligraphy 97 Christien Gholson someone says “middle” still can’t tell where the voice is coming from—the roof? Snow grains skid over tarpaper the way a crow says nothing when it barks three times into the wind sitting on the streetlight pole out the front door, no beginning, no meaning under candle shadow, wrapped in nothing but crows, crows in the morning, crows in the evening, the sentinel crow leftover from some lost Donner party stands in the kitchen sink before dawn, stares at the faucet, waits for the moon’s reflection in a sudden drop, black eye reflecting the glass surface of the moon’s sea, my cheek across your smooth belly when the dirt streets still have no snow tracks, no moonrabbits to bare their perfect snow-teeth someone says “end” but our ears are attached to our fingers and it passes over us unheard The water from the broken toilet is the slip-sheet falling, water spilling under ice laced into itself, ledge pool following pool, and you know you’re not done with crows, there’s going to be one on the toilet tank in the bathroom come storm-morning after, he won’t mention the weather but get straight to the point, say: “Do you remember what you saw this morning when you woke?” A profoundly moral question he thinks not knowing each of your fingers has a name, a name the same way the stones are stacked in the barrier wall next to the shed, a name the same way leather boots by the sliding glass door fill with moonlight while outside the glass are black wells where the boots made print shadows in the snow, a name the way tire tread on the road’s shoulder holds the silhouette of a ponderosa, the way the branch overhang has the same high-pitched sing and drift 98 Ecotone: reimagining place of snow dust over a snow curve by the shed, the shed door banging against the shed walls again, a name the same as blackweed pokes through snow bending, straightening each finger to my mouth a name the way the stones are stacked each finger across my back a name the way the stones are stacked that awkward angle of each stone the dark space between ...