January
       

The pistol-clean mouth
is oiled and you will marry

next winter.
Here is a winter
a meter, warm

pocketknife dull
in the pocket
for your pearl fingers.

For the pearl-
fingered:
I don't know how

to put this.
Snow showing the air.
A shovel

ripping into
a patch of ice,

hacking through it.
Divisive wind
you don't dare think

has a place. The weight
you carry
until what you ask for

is there: your name
inked on some pulp,

pressed into plastic,
settled into bone

and you look up

and think
these hands
these

hands, and
say it aloud.

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Copyright © 2014 DJ Dolack All rights reserved
from Whittling a New Face in the Dark
Black Ocean
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission