These days we ache for a music whose bones
we can see, the lump in the throat a small
moon of grief rising over the billows
before they break. But the dial on the radio
is jumpy, is broken, begins to fill
with grey noise, attempts at erasure.
Hello, hello, can you hear the sounds we make
in our hamlets by the river? The temperature
is always edging toward zero. The earnest buds
that managed to line the trees last week show
wounded, translucent faces. On the sidewalks
where they’ve fallen, collapsed tracery of veins.
And yet they are so beautiful. We want to smear
their names on our bodies. We will never look away.
In response to Via Negativa: All heart.