Still
cold enough for gloves. So pushing through
the
weeping willow curtains meant bamboo
hung
segmented and winter-colored, chains
that
swallowed something lumpy – strings of beads
or
new-fed boas maybe. Walk-through ropes
of what
would soon be willows, feathery,
but which
looked more like pastel fingers now:
elongated,
arthritic. Like a door
into a
warmer universe, you pause,
imagining
the shimmer on your face
and naked
shoulders, woody grasses pierced
like
flutes with birds to whistle them. The lumps
are solid
though, like Ovid's pregnant tree –
and when
you push through, nothing changes. March.
Kathryn Jacobs is a
medievalist with two books, three chapbooks, no fellowships, no
poets-in-residence, and no contest finalists of any kind.
