the black mountains rise up cities cloud-urban citadels not the crow clang-tapping a tin post not the screel and soar of the gull can prevent it tails of berries strew the ground littered already with wasp-hasps wet leaves rain washed the trees out my body in its wet and dry calls yours it does not yearn for you I can snap your image from my mind at the crossing where life is my soul doing just as theirs in their everyday I watch them carry their validities like groceries the realities of their lives across streams of traffic observing the marvel of their feet carrying weight my feet-of-clay are in their wintering standing here observing reds deep dark greens I wish you away and move into them into their flow bit by bit the mountains have dissolved behind houses as magic cities surely do crows worry the long wet grass and the gull has soared to the sea red berries impinge when I crack their blood -bags into the ground their juices red underfoot I pick the threads snip them at their roots tidying this box of sharp things scissors and needles neat and sweet the box smells of vanilla freesia and some other thing I put the scissors away it smells of cedar
winter street by C. Murray was first published by One Jacar Press (January 2020) and collected in Gold Friend (Turas Press, 2020)
Online URL: http://one.jacarpress.com/issue-20/#Chris%20Murray
Chris Murray 