Reach

 

Within the cadaver colors 

of early winter

 

needle ice 

grows steadily in

crystal bones

 

pushing through the earth 

by night

its translucent

skeleton

 

moving

millimeter 

by

millimeter

 

stretching its skin 

until it

bends and breaks

 

leaving  

icy limbs scattered

under a 

starlit 

sky.

 

Wait —

don’t turn 

away. Every 

form in this world

stretches

and breaks

 

and rises 

again. Life

itself

shapes a sinewy 

longing 

within you,

 

each moment

a bridge, a shaft of light

spanning 

what 

flows

 

with what 

stands.

 

Reach for it —

from the clear night 

within you.

Grow toward 

your ceiling of stars.

Shatter it 

with the unguarded thirst

of a cracked chest,

an opened cage 

flush 

with dreams —

 

scaffold 

your luminous

with form.