Francesca 


Snow haze gleams like sand.
But snow has gathered there, has piled up,
Sphinx of questioning substance, or a sort
will be penciled on the coffeeshop menus.
To reach out into its own vanishing
By bloody poolârattling, gasping his last.
Amid the gloom, there, on the pole, stands black
and the numbed yards will go back undercover.
As if your human shape were what the storm
Of meaning like theseâthe world created by
I might have happily lived some other childhood.
Scrawny wolves, and you,
Upon from the right by far trees, that white place
Oh you builders,
VI. Smeerenburg and the Whale-Oil Rush
Blurring the terrain,
In search of brighter green to come. No way!
>From point to point of meaningâopen? closed?â
But what I am looking at is hardened snow,

