Snowfield with Blue Fences

When the morning alarm frazzles the peace, 
best not to think, just rise into coffee
to the desk carrying your brain akimbo
to pray like a wavering candleflame. 

The diminishment of pencils across
the snowfield hemmed by blue is a narrow journey.
Accompanied by a dead boy's lead
I press this communion jot by jot.

A jot for the belt and bunkbed.
A jot for how he held this explosive power in his head.
A jot for root-cellar-of-the-soul sobs,
          bodies wrung and wracked.
A jot for the forge he never finished,
          from crosses amid crisis.
A jot from the dark side, prostrate in the dust,
          cloak torn, hair shorn.
A muffled jot kneeling to gather shattered shards.
A jot for an uncomfortable soul, homeless at home.
A jot for lambs in a wolf-driven world.
A jot for the body shop of broken people,
          the doctor's confirmation,
          the various states of shatterhood.
A jot for the new moaning mantra:
          why     why    why    why    why    why  
A jot for living out vows, word by painful word.
A jot for pushing away from the table, a betrayal
          without a word, without even a kiss.
A jot for parenting the wind through the trees.

First published in Kestrel in Summer 2022, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Also included in the collection A Thursday in June, available on Amazon.com.