Black River, White Fields    

Walking along the crystalline edge
that gives way to the river,
river moving now out of habit and ache,
as my body walks here every day
by habit, no longer expecting answers
in the slaw of thistle and water,
in how snow, jolted loose by my boots,
falls into the long eraser of scent and matter,
and is gone without evidence
it ever was how I saw it.

I walk these fields, the white bed
where I lie with eyes bandaged, my body
half being born beneath
these blank acres, half swept along
the black water.

Each night, I come in and light
the lamp. Always the match, its flare,
comes closest to what I want,
and I must remind myself:
those are my hands striking the box, holding
fire, my hands braiding wet hair,
trusting in the motion. Still,

most nights I head back out with a flashlight,
day officially over, expecting
nothing, except maybe the squall
of a lonely flyer, or coyote tracks without
the shifting pack. Some remnant,
some diminishing sign of what continues
past the vanishing point.