The Height of Winter
after Gennady Aygi
White
in the street
where dreams are broken watches
that disappear
beneath the snow
The field folds
into itself
Who knew
this much could freeze
in just one night
Not even a single bird’s call
splits the air
A shocking freedom
can be found
in this environment
The piling snow laps
against the doors & windows
touching us gently behind the ears
“Washburn Ave” image by Flickr user Zach Den Adel
Domestic Movement
Do you come when called
when I say your name & conjure a face so innumerable & loud
as a thing placed in floating hands
Is your body free to be given
gleefully boyish & unencumbered
Of course skin will materialize in various incarnations only to be burned black as sugar
I weep with wide open spectacles
That is treachery all over again
I walk the long road in winter as a sage or traveler or simply bare feet pressing the earth & gravity
I dance circles in the living room in the cold in the way I’ve seen in black & white movies & this makes you happy as you watch me turn into a leaf
I wonder if this way will please you
I wonder if our skeletons are the same
Is there a movement between the sleeping mind & the present
We touch becoming a soaked garden
Our bellies are full & round & we follow the spices around the room
This is the sophistication we desire
What is more beautiful than our changing bodies
We speak together to the rooms we inhabit in such ephemerality
To be here is to be what the water gave us
& this is madness
The water remembers
This is coming back home
image by Flickr user Ian Borsuk
Better Windows
It is time to build a fire
something like a glow
as the horizon slinks away behind the half-trees
& the half-light is the same as it was this morning when we went skiing on the frozen lake
There is a connection here between our bodies & it feels like I’m in a world of joy
& you
I can’t quite tell
The woods stand in our sightline in a gray haze as clouds move over the water
The words we speak to each other sit in our bellies as stones & we hope for more weather
I try to remember what I said in Tennessee but only breaking sounds come
I watch you sit behind long windows knitting wide-eyed lace in the still quiet
I wander the room
looking for a field
in a single haystack
finding only a lit candle on the windowsill leaning out & away from us
If I gave you a sentence
would there be some sort of reprisal
Or
would we continue on as before in a swirl of bliss
We could move on from this place & live in ecstasy while the world around us spins masterfully
out of control
–
Andrew Ruzkowski lives and writes in Milwaukee. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review, The Bakery, [PANK], Midwestern Gothic, The Seattle Review, Willows Wept Review, The Camel Saloon, Emerge Literary Journal, and Parable Press, among others. He has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, a Best of the Net award, and was a finalist for the 2012 Atlantis Award and the 2012 Kay Murphy Prize for Poetry. His debut chapbook, A Shape & Sound, is available from ELJ Publications. His first full-length collection, Things That Keep Us from Drifting, is available from Another New Calligraphy. He also serves as the reviews editor for Poets’ Quarterly, and as a poetry editor for Black Tongue Review.