i want to split my shadow from my body
to feel the peel of its black scab

press my soul smooth
under the hot heel of an iron

i flip through old notebooks
each page an incomplete image

i see a child smearing paint
to feel it glide beneath his fingers

with no need to believe
in the colors that swirl under his hand

he only loves the stubborn way
they gum up in his palm

i see myself as a blank page
waiting to be written into motion

as if some line of dark ink
could form a portrait

each turn of phrase a brush stroke
thick with oil, the heavy layers piled on

i see a man awoken in a dark room
dinner is over and daylight passed

through the window snow falls in clusters
and hits the ground with tiny puffs

the house is empty except for muddied prints
tracked in by someone’s shoes



he traces them down the stairs
out the door as they wind through the yard

past the wooden fence that borders the tree line
as they are slowly swallowed by the whiteness