Seasonal
By Maggie Dietz
Summer-long the gulls’ old umbra cry
unraveled ease
but certain waves went by, then by.
The sky shook out the days.
The seabirds’ hunger rose in rings,
flung rock-clams to their shatterings,
raked gullets full, the bone-bills scraped.
High noon: oceans of time escaped.
*
All winter we slept benched together,
breakers, sleepdrunk children in a car
not conscious where they go.
We kneaded bread, kept out the weather,
while old suspicions huddled by the door,
mice in the snow.
*
In spring, the leaving bloomed—
oak leaf unfurled, a foot, resplendent
vigorous, aching to shake loose
but still dependent.
One morning moongreen loaves
rose into bones that rose to lift
our skin like sleeves,
our time together’s revenant.
*
Perennial fall, come cool the cliffs,
bring quiet, sulfur, early dark.
Represent as you must: dusk, dying, ends
and row us into winter’s water:
The body, wind-whipped, forms stiff peaks,
ice settles in the marrow bone.
At the chest, the live stone breaks against the beak,
beak breaks against stone.
Copyright Credit: Maggie Dietz, "Seasonal" from Perennial Fall. Copyright © 2006 by Maggie Dietz. Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
Source: Perennial Fall (The University of Chicago Press, 2006)