DRIFT
From one direction
a body made of gold.
From another
boats in snow.
Months too early and
no sacrifice mending
this.
It wasn’t
no wind;
there was wind—
above the snow sails bellowed.
Along the shore, limning docks:
was green.
Then the body:
sleeping, beginning
to open,
beginning to turn.
Golden, and the sea
was frozen—
golden and the boats were moored.
I placed my hand
upon this golden back.
And there I left it.
Snow rose from sea beds.
No sky, no storm.
Snow rose from warming waters
like a warning opposite
predictions.
I left my hand where I had placed it.
Boats, snowed in,
were going nowhere.
And snow rose.
____________________________________________________________________MICHAEL D. SNEDIKER is the author of Queer Optimism: Lyric Personhood & Other Felicitous Persuasions (U.Minnesota Press), as well as Nervous Pastoral (dove|tail press) and Bourdon (White Rabbit Press). His latest poetry book, The Apartment of Tragic Appliances, is forthcoming from punctum books.
____________________________________________________________________Read more by Michael D. Snediker:
Three poems at Sixers Review
Poem at Jubilat
Poem in at Length