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Winter loses its leaves
and says what it takes, it takes
sickness gifts taking over countries
over people’s actual gifts
bright grey is the color still, can’t breathe
who put these angles in us
yes angles
we attend to their impossibilities that they become
if not possible, light-legible, which bear load
pigeons and other spring threats
old and young after work
kneeling in the aisle
the same temperature
tears for every age
blood on a long trip
leaves the hands home alone
to fend for themselves
cheering sounds in the distance
the blood looks East
acknowledging the original man who blames
broken eggs
somersaults twirling like a yolk
rinsed in the palms of a thin woman’s hand
as its whites fall away
under the faucet
better to not look into telescopes
at faraway things
let our eyes not behold
what the face cannot
or the face we pull away from the lens
is full of stones
eyes full of astral needs
the whole countenance buckling
when the world went home within hours
flew over an ochre bog
casting its bread upon the waters
Enormous dead ceramic Christ
must stand for the innocence of the body
love and intention transfigure mediums
however poor
an answer to the question
why should one bother
who eats eats fire and spirit
a tincture
to aid digestion for the sweet paska bread
no pickles on pizza that should be the first rule
Emmanuel's shining eyes
Carpathian forged thyme
the house balances on the peak of a mountain
a humorous world
cows everywhere, large country
countless teenagers on the tram
a city sliding sideways
man and woman annoyed at the understood life
why Nazareth and why now
what the response should be in people
the arches over them
the red cloth over that, protecting the sky
from the brightness of inside spaces
when in those spaces we as persons sometimes live
as the walls are closing
and the spirit overnights itself
to itself
tick of a watch does not stand for time
the tooth of the fabric between’s
a sail to crosswinds
two-dimensions underline the real
access mystery in ways three cannot
stuck so close to home
why pretend a gift does not stand for the giver
a candle between a face
and its reflection
the wax is the lips
and the flame the trembling diamond
below the nose
NOTE: These poems are parts 3 and 4 of a sequence, excerpted from the longer poem “Lviv in March.”