Two by Lori Lamothe
Lake with Mountains
Light strikes against silence
and the hour rings out its whole note.
Stillness ripples to the edges of emerald.
The world is on the other side of escape.
Our canoe makes a path
like breath on a window pane.
We can see straight down.
The rocks are composed in glacial time.
At night, they make a counterpoint with the stars
but it's impossible to catch the tune.
Each measure a century long.
A refrain only the dead know.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Vanishing Point
Morning curves to fog, veers headlong
toward invisible—your mood a shade of horizon
I can’t see anymore.
Your light out of sight, out of mind, out of
life, the clock by the bed ticking
the shorthand version of goodbye.
Like the girl in the fairytale, I could disappear
inside this calligraphy of trees,
this watery forest of inkblot fortunes.
I think you must be the equation I dreamt
once upon a time, a long time ago--
silver lake of integers I couldn’t unravel.
Or maybe it’s all just some cheap mystic trick–
clouds in a teacup, gold dissolved to amber.
O inverse image of the heart, memory
transposed onto infrared film,
I pour coffee into waterfalls
and watch the day fork its blue tattoos
across such an immensity of sky.
Somewhere in a drive-thru hotel room
love is written backwards and upside down
across a bathroom mirror,
or strung precarious over the tips of skyscrapers.
Somewhere on a broken bridge, your harmonica sunsets
are scaling night’s wide nets.
The clock by the bed telegraphs the shorthand version of silence.
The seconds whirl down their ticker tape parade.
In my open palm I hold a pinprick map of stars,
zodiac of possibility
to lead you home to me.
Lake with Mountains
Light strikes against silence
and the hour rings out its whole note.
Stillness ripples to the edges of emerald.
The world is on the other side of escape.
Our canoe makes a path
like breath on a window pane.
We can see straight down.
The rocks are composed in glacial time.
At night, they make a counterpoint with the stars
but it's impossible to catch the tune.
Each measure a century long.
A refrain only the dead know.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Vanishing Point
Morning curves to fog, veers headlong
toward invisible—your mood a shade of horizon
I can’t see anymore.
Your light out of sight, out of mind, out of
life, the clock by the bed ticking
the shorthand version of goodbye.
Like the girl in the fairytale, I could disappear
inside this calligraphy of trees,
this watery forest of inkblot fortunes.
I think you must be the equation I dreamt
once upon a time, a long time ago--
silver lake of integers I couldn’t unravel.
Or maybe it’s all just some cheap mystic trick–
clouds in a teacup, gold dissolved to amber.
O inverse image of the heart, memory
transposed onto infrared film,
I pour coffee into waterfalls
and watch the day fork its blue tattoos
across such an immensity of sky.
Somewhere in a drive-thru hotel room
love is written backwards and upside down
across a bathroom mirror,
or strung precarious over the tips of skyscrapers.
Somewhere on a broken bridge, your harmonica sunsets
are scaling night’s wide nets.
The clock by the bed telegraphs the shorthand version of silence.
The seconds whirl down their ticker tape parade.
In my open palm I hold a pinprick map of stars,
zodiac of possibility
to lead you home to me.
