- Swallow, and: Last Winter
Swallow
The world is hereto tell us everything.
It's taught ushow to miss
and still make senseof a scene.
We are leftto make up
half of winteras we wish.
Another year,another
spring.Something else,
this blue.Thus,
the leaves.They are kind
of a winter too,though mean
to take awayhalf of all I knew. [End Page 171]
Last Winter
The night the moose surrounded the cabin, coming on as part of the night, which beganjust as the other night was ending, so that they, as nights, could almost hold hands, I woke
to no sound, but sensing them, like one does snow or the lights, and I came down from the loftto be at the windows, and saw there a world all the blood had been drained from—that blue
shy of black, shy of night, the three dark shapes bedded down, spread out, and the dogssilent, chained—not understanding but understanding not to fight. [End Page 172]
Jill Osier's first full-length book of poems, The Solace Is Not the Lullaby, was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets and will be published this month.