A solitude of the ear buoys the breath's answer
       

A solitude of the ear buoys the breath's answer
to smoke from autumnal fires. Gathered up,
gathered out, paper hearts and iron stoves.

Put on your hat and gloves, it's poignant out.
Carry your own chill separate from the air's.

Cradle fuel, stand stamping on the corner
ten years too late waiting for a blank beloved.
She comes in a furl of branches to cover

your eyes with mittened hands. Guess who?
But that's not how it happened, you never turned

to feast your eyes on vacancy. Instead
I'm still stamping snail-mail letters to the editor
and picking pomegranate seeds from my teeth.

Dwelling yet in dear ears deaf to my storms, my doing.

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Copyright © 2011 Joshua Corey All rights reserved
from Severance Songs
Tupelo Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission