Diamond Dust

My eyes rove over this slow meadow,
 
this tundra, cathedra
 
of sundogs and solar wind,       which stitch
 
my sight with froth,
 
with snow wraiths.       I have forgotten the movement of the ocean. In
 
its place:       a blue tongue rolling down the nave of
 
my brain, licking the idea
 
of ocean into dry ice, into a halo of diamond dust.       Coldest
 
hallucination, particulate sheen, shun
 
my eye.
 
Shut it
 
inside the oyster of your sky.     Let me be
 
your grit, your snowy ache.     Bed me like a pearl.     Lay me
 
in the field of your nacre.

 
 
 

Claire Wahmanholm's poems are forthcoming from The Journal, Parcel, The Kenyon Review Online, The Blueshift Journal, BOAAT, and Third Coast, and have been featured on Verse Daily. She is a PhD student at the University of Utah, where she co-edits Quarterly West.