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RHAPSODY
for Andrea Brownstein
At the head of the valley the car
squelches into peat bog. A baroque
staging. Brown, lumpy, the hills
heap around the feet of Dolbadern Tower.
Cliff and cloud like crumpled paper.
The peaks strobe-lit through wuthering snow.
At the edge of the lake a boy hunkers
next to a flayed carcass. He has found
a use for the boy-scout knife he hones
on a boulder, singing the while
in a windy orchestration of birds.
The moss bleeds into my boots.
Touring in country of this genre
we must keep our wits about us
lest we be swallowed whole. The boy
is self-consumed, smearing soft iron
on the edge of stone, hearing his master's
echoing voice holler Calloo! Callay!
And then the light changes. We let
the snow fall on us, the black girl
who has traveled with me lifting her face
into the havoc of snow, the snow covering
her hat, the blank disks of her glasses.
The snow melting in her open mouth.
   
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