qarrtsiluni

Think here of orange peel and cloves, boiled
against winter in November kitchens,
or the flutter square of a tea bag, or ellipsis
of deer scat, punctuation of a spooked animal.

Try to think–but a thought, cinder-
block certain, eludes in grief. Ideas
dissipate like twilight. Life is like a gut
punch, thought the breath

you cannot draw. Life like the vertigo
in the afterblur of a camera flash,
magnesium dreams ghost the cornea,
the pupil, crackle the optic nerve,

things long gone now insistent
half-images, always there
when you close your eyes
to wish them back.

by Gabriel Welsch