The Icy Edge of Stillwater Lake, Not Stillwater Lake

10 May 2005, British Library

Last summer was dark.

For reasons not yet known

the letter m disappears

making making, aching.

Not that illusion itself is absent.

The spindling tops of spindling birches

clamor for an air beyond reach.

Risible, the air, a swooping figure, disappears.

More than that,

buds, recently arrived, stay put.

A host of dandelions enact religion:

trim ministers deferred.

October reaches January.

Everything shivers.

Stillwater Lake

trains itself.

Do not, it repeats, disturb the shore.

Do not disturb the shore.

She is sleeping.