wet, curved hills,
sleet behind my eyes,
watery moss

in unreal green;
all this ***** like love
at my heavy steps,

then the stolen voices
of playing children;
kites that text the sky,

all this part of a story;
a day empty as a fool.

black *****, minstrel faced,
                       leaves broken with ice,
                       veined like a frosted puppet;

something known is leaving;
                      the cold makes me
                      stamp in acted rage;

I can't stand the weight, I can't stand the weight.

we drove late afternoon
                 over the ***** Rhein,
                 the sky fake with orange,

to Bonn : to a house of cool empty rooms,
                 white with words, dark with chords,
                 to an elegant Hammerflügel ;

for my father the end of a journey,
                 but the start of the sublime

we drove late afternoon
                 over the ***** Rhein,
                 the sky fake with orange,

to Bonn, to a house of cool, emplty rooms,
                white with words, dark with chords,
                to an elegant Hammerflügel;

for my father the end of a journey,
               but the start of the sublime.

a lost girl arranges in her room
                 her dress, with stillness,
                 she pushes her tongue
                 against small kitten teeth

outside the lift groans and bangs,
                lights burn shapes
                of flats and stairs;

this is a place to circle in,
                to return to,
                never to leave,

she is sediment, a line of ash,
                a failed escapee .

you step like a puzzled *****,
                you sniff at damp bark
                and beds of leaves,

clothed in burnt sticks and smoke,
               your eyes are slanting snow
               wary of ice and shadow;

this falls between us;
               you wait under trees
               or at frozen gates

on evenings when I late home,
              carrying the basket of stones
              you laid at my door

open door ; icewall
                   crusted as a rabid eye
                   all the change of skin in frost
                   a bedouin of snow,

consider the end;
                  white room; stiff starch
                  the soft slide of slippers
                  along linoleum

winter's partner ; a slower cold