After Wallace Stevens  

Cold slows me.
Still, I see what
lies beneath.  

I’m always cold, I think.
Glare ice on the surface of my mind—
sparkles rising.  

I do not think of the light
or the hush of the world
where bark and limb are all
and the silent sky
where, now, the wind is still,  

leaving my bare mind
open, free
to melt
into that palpable emptiness.