from Letters Inscribed in Snow (V)

 
 
 
I’m in love with you, the river conjured, conjoined. And the river followed her. But it was no use. She slipped back on her shoes and ran along the edges of murdered epithets.
 
If you are taken away by ice you are escorted by heavily beaded condensation which clasps and begs, then ornaments your every breath, like a sphere of loaded mistresses, loaves of tread.
 
If you are taken you are loaded like a presumptuous street bell, ovens of whereabouts, a vanquished tallow wing of ellipses.
 
She told his absence to deduce, to describe the problem, in words and symbols upon the banks of clasps and premonitions.
 
She slipped back on her breath and loaded herself with trodden green shores
 
 
 

Laynie Browne is the author of ten collections of poetry and two novels. Her most recent collection of poems, Lost Parkour Ps(alms) is out in two editions, one in English, and another in French, from Presses universitaires de Rouen et du Havré (2014). She is a 2014 Pew Fellow. Forthcoming books include Scorpyn Odes (Kore Press) and P R A C T I C E (SplitLevel Texts).