Last Words Written on a Northwest Passage
— Nina Peláez
after Frederic Edwin Church
In the amphitheater of ice, light sings
its sad blue notes. At the edge, limbs
dissolving into gloam. Without scale,
without weight, I cradle the landscape
in my arms. Red rock, white ice. Clouds
passed like hands over a fevered face.
Snow piles high as ash, soul fledging
from its plot. I long for heat. The bodies
of the living. Horizon rippling pink,
memory of a bed where I was warm.
Pillows cut the sky. In gelid sheets, I sleep
on water. Dream of birds. I walk to where
voices catch the wind. I cannot reach.
Tide drags me by my feet. I yield to it.
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