Ice Pick, and: Olive Pitter

Ice Pick

also for Lilah Hook

Yours, yours, yours. I held your fluted mindand lied. The best of me, the cream & curve

of this, the compline & canto of that,the best of me, the butterbean vine, did not

come visit you today. She sent this oneinstead, who cannot stop crying, who,

whittled back by the smell of urineand confusion, looks at you and cries.

The crossing is not wide. A shepherd’sstaff, a flock of geese, a footbridge, a moment.

We watch the rain—it will stop—and know(boundless, trawling) nothing about anything.

Olive Pitter

    I imagine you apricot, so.All of you. Honeyed and snugin the pit of time since timebegan. I imagine you anchoredwithin my small ocean, waiting,disregarding all attemptsat swaying your seed selves.

    Whatever keeps you there,remember. All the months lostto strung-up nights, all the calloustime remember: you are mine—the weight of small birdsbore you up in midsummer dawn.