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Thursday, March 21, 2013

"High and Bright and Fine and Ice" by Darcie Dennigan

When the motorboat man asked me to love him

I whispered precipice
the word for the no-more-boyfriend feeling

because precipice contains ice (practically twice)
because I wanted teetering—

What? he said
Yes

His ears from the engines—so hard of hearing—his hands always so hot

Mid our first winter—I’d clung so long to the dock
he had to crowbar my fingers off

Each digit cracked so cleanly
Would you say they break like icicles? I asked sweetly

I knew I was nothing! But if I could sustain one song—
I is, I is, I is I is I is

I could be: ice

Sex on the bathroom’s cold marble counter was best
I whispered statuette, monument

What? he, sculpting my legs, said

Yes

The child? I named her Cecily
It sounded like iced lily

For pure, I said pristine
At the ocean, I said brine

Isle for vacation; for flowers, edelweiss

But when I said (only of late, late!) I choose ice
Brittle pearls broke behind my syllables

Did he hear me?
Again, twice, thrice:

For my love
we would need to live
in a great pyramid
We would need to sleep
beneath the continental shelf
with Antarctic crust blanketing us
The only driveway to any kind of house
is an iceberg-ridden Northwest Passage
When I whispered universe
you were to translate it as
one bright line
one bright rime

2 comments:

  1. This could be one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lovely article .... wonderful things such a beautiful relationship

    ReplyDelete