Midwinter Requiem
you; indecipherable in that static
the broadest slice of a pen
couldn’t assimilate you into this universe.
January is the worst time to apologize,
swing of an axe in the dark broom
of tomorrow, my heart - silent
waiting out the interim blues and cold,
a winter of self-loathing where once
you were the warmest flesh
on a street corner, when once
I kept your picture side by side
with my mother’s, desilvered
because I don’t know that woman.
but I know you, the careful keep
of nightfall in your eaves, a crust
of crystalline in the black
of your eyelashes, backlit
under the heaviest constellations.
quietly, the galaxy is sewing light
into the milky expanse
of our irrevocable future,
no thought for us or our prophecies,
just a passive machine
meticulously eating the night.
Erin Cisney
Erin Cisney is a poet from Lancaster, Pennsylvania who’s work has appeared in such places as Spry Lit Journal, rust & moth and Literary Orphans, among others. Her first collection of poetry, Anatomy Museum, was released in Jan 2020 by Unsolicited Press. Twitter: @erin_cisney
About This Poem
"This poem is a reflection on loss and the passage of time."