The Linnet's Wings | Page 75

WINTER ' FOURTEEN Resonant Frequency by Nick Bowman In a car’s wake leaves skip like jumping jacks. A gold road, where trees’ bones lurch out of blinding sun. Dabs of rich lichen blues, soft moss patches on walls that line a route between here and somewhere. I was there once, I think, with you. In a fire’s shadow dark corners wither an evening. Stuttering wood, red as a gothic novel, heats us a little. A carriage clock chimes unseen. We are talking, voices soft stringed, lute-like, not about love, but loving. A sun sets in your eyes. and leaves fall, yellowing. One lands on your shoulder. “That’s lucky” you say. The rest are taken by the water, round the bend to….. somewhere else. These images seem clear, yet sharp corners are rounded off, if they were ever sharp at all. I hear myself breathing, smell your perfume, sense a sequence reducing to meet my memory’s resonant frequency. When it does, will I bottom out on some unknown mud flat? A bend in a river. It is morning, mist loiters over the water and a first frost turns threadbare. Sudden wind on my cheek The Linnet's Wings Poetry, Winter 2014