(January: Fredericton, New Brunswick)
Don McKay
With no name and no mask. Not the dusty rock,
not the goddess, not the decor of romance,
not the face. Express from infinity
it arrives in a flood of cold desire like a
tooth, like a voracious
reader. The snow wakes singing, its empty angels
filling with invisible silica, quickening
to fly off as Snowy Owls.
The mind of winter.
This mon who refuses to defer,
whose light is the death of fire and the silence of the loon,
whose song can snap off ears.
