Dispatch #47

The Reprieve

The Reprieve 

A week 
that freezes, thaws, 
and freezes again. 

The skyline scales
and cracks.
Morning’s frayed 

gray plumes
pull through the wreck
and the wreck in mind. 

To be reminded 
there’s grace 
in ordinary weather,

in the reprieve 
from neon 
and clouds low enough 

to cloud thought. Grace 
in daylight, the drowse 
and sway; 

and how, when it’s this
thin, things barely cling 
to their names. Grace 

to be nameless, a form 
among forms, drifting 
in February glare.

Grace, too, 
when windows 
reflect and distort, 

at night,
the shape of a room.

---

from A New Silence