watch and wait the branching trees and their capillary networks flush with nothing for many months. you learn the words xylem, phloem. run them around your mouth like magic rinse. something so big can live, breathe, shed and then, shuddering, come into a tender green with the foul-smelling white flowers, or the stony berries, or sway alone with papery leaves. it’s easy to love a thing adorned. a thing in its spring blush. but someone’s heart must pluck at the sight of the barren fingers arcing against blue, laced by ice and sugared with snow. someone must mourn kore’s arrival, her petal train, her pollen parade. gone, the ice. the burning cold. hands outstretched instead of curved around exothermic bundles deep in downy pockets. someone must make do with the stray breezes, the summer hail, the sky torn apart by rain. count down the waxing days until the dark embrace wraps round again, and frost unfurls its blankets. agesander, i wait with you. two lovesick fools struck dumb by the same song, the same circle creaking along since the first dawn. the rose garlands dry in our grasp, but when she tires of embellishing the branches, ornamenting with fruits and flowers, it will be our turn to bedizen. to drape the world in monochrome, to lay beauty to rest for a time.
a a khaliq is a poet and medical student from the midwest. she writes, in the tradition of kafka, to close her eyes.
Amethyst Review 