Hardly star-crossed, though out in the cold,
my boots print meaningless hieroglyphs
across a blank page of snow:
each muffled footfall sinks,
as in dream-walking, back,
as if I’ve nowhere else to go.
Rooks fleck branching spines,
conjure distance with rasped crakes:
omen pedlars, disreputable seers
(though not their fault to be so misread).
As Orpheus knew, best not look back
nor too far forward either.
Hibernating fugitives will return
to inhabit their vacant spaces.
And of course across a clearing
there it is – the look light has
behind winter glass,
orange swag from a horizontal sun:
and that, love, though little,
