by Kathleen Hellen
where is the moon
predicting things I took for granted. Opposites
the sliver and the star that slipped into the quiet of the kitchen
The rain changing
to something hard, unrelenting. Ice-sirens
The slow, slipped slew
of margins, indistinguishable—deep
in the bruit, the falling
snow. The way the world might end
the great beasts
disappearing into fable
your breath against my neck
I say I loved your hands
like paws
towing runners through the cold in avalanche
I loved your face
pelted like an animal’s
I’d take you like that even now—snow driven
after you, there is no one
Kathleen Hellen is the author of the award-winning collection Umberto’s Night and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net, and featured on Poetry Daily, her poems have won prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review.
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