revision
an offering of clarion bones,
finger-worn and hollow,
clear-voiced in your hands.
a remembrance of dry wood and
dead leaves illustrated in sideways
shifting eyes and slanting glimpses
of last season’s prey, the light of it
blooming in your pupils.

but there’s no smile on your curling
comma mouth with this year’s
river caught in your hair, and all
your little loves dying off
like flowers under snow.






original draft
a winter morning and
an offering of clarion bones,
finger-worn and hollow, the
detritus of bygone loves desiccated
in the palms of your hands. less
a remembrance of dry leaves or dead
wood, illustrated in sideways
shifting eyes and slanting glimpses
of last season’s prey, this is
no promise, no elegy, no song.

come summer you’ll be
waiting here again.

04/08/2008

Author's Note: Another CW poem that I hadn't posted. Ambivalent! I don't really know that I like either version.

Posted on 04/08/2008
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