221. Stories of Ice

multiple stories
led to the same point
the same location
in space the same
place at the highest
point of remembering


1

the lake is Caroga
two-eyed and staring

at twilight
it blinks

its seeing is clearest
in snowless winter

the icy lens of each
eye staring into blue


2

the ice
is a black sheet
of road

running
north and south
at a slant

the axis of a car
changes
at this point


3

the pages
of the book
have transformed
to sheets of ice

you can still
read the words
which appear
to be squirrels

or fetched acorns
in their mouths
or the trees
they run up


4

the windows’ve
covered with crystals
of ice that grow
into veins or roadways
a honeycombed vision

you look into
the window
and see everything
that is left
expanding in place


5

children arrived
under
the suspended light
of icicles
bearing in their hands
small balls of ice

they have
squeezed
in their tiny hands
balls of snow
for hours
in the cold

when they play
marbles with these
spheres of ice
they imagine what
a spherical eye
loose in the world sees