Michael D. Snediker

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