Benediction

You take it all for granted
and when I look you back

it’s with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can do the least damage.
Breathe deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
with your back to the wall.

Adrienne Rich

A nor’easter rising as the glass fell,
I was too quiet. I watched myself

wash dishes, arms floating in the sink,
breath caught in steam, braced
against the storms overhead
my back bent to bear the weight

of morning. In small, neat panes,
her reflection smiled back at me. She smiled, watching
the crows fly from our window in a cloud.

The evening spread like the wing of a crow,
finely etched patterns fading against the failing light,
Venus rising smothered by one swift
stroke of a nightfall with no stars.

At dawn only her love letters
and silence. A plane weaves in haze
some fantastic pattern of the night,

a crumpled light to read a letter by.