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July Westhale: moon moon

March 11, 2022 by PBQ Leave a Comment

There’s snow on the ocean, which is meant to confuse them
and does, though not because they are unprepared for it
but rather because the sight of it reminds them
of the static-hearted parts of their bodies as they prostrate
themselves in years-over-yonder: exploratory attempts
to find warmth—not unlike a surefooted expedition—,
in the disappearance of everything ripe—now covered
with snow’s annihilating speeches—, in the blank stares 
of our children as they amputate themselves from the world,
in the cloudscape of come forgotten to be enjoyed,
on the snow of a down comforter at which they’d first begun
(circle back to exhibit A), in the cold expanse following 
the question am I like winter to you, in the unspooling 
that happens when they, I, I mean I play a memory 
over again for the too-many-ith time, in the television’s 
convex and prudish eye, in the snowy sound of over-use,
in the way empty feels like brain-freeze, in the brilliant
and nearly-neon white of the sign which mourns vacancy
even if everyone around us says off-season, says they love

the snow, the way it makes well-conquered land possible again.

Filed Under: Issue 101, Poetry, Poetry 101 Tagged With: July Westhale

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