Marsh-grass like a bank creature, black-footed and salt-tipped. Twilight
in the water grown tinsel. You're drawn to them heavily, a clarity
stilled, waiting for the body to catch up. No more events, parties, no
more running ahead but here with the fever, with what is wrong. The
evenings will be long. You will be alone and scared. This familiar out-
of-season, not of harvest but of fast, thrift and reticence, faced with
the same flaws. Look, the ghosts are calling. Will you ignore them
this time? The moat inside midnight blue--your favorite crayon color as
a child--sinking, not your favorite, not like breakthrough. To deepen.
What does that mean? Earth come down now from sky. Chocolate
so rich it has the taste of dung. Will you emerge again, chilled and
flowerless, in your hands the dim lamp? Or will you brave an intimacy
with something new?
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About the Author:
Melissa Kwasny has written many books of poems, including Reading Novalis in Montana and The Nine Senses, which contains a set of poems that won the Poetry Society of America's 2009 Cecil Hemley Award. She currently resides in Montana. "Frosted Marsh" will be included in her 2015 collection Pictograph.