from V
Carolyn Guinzio

The palms were burned to make the ash. On Sunday, V
tucked the palm behind the frame of the print of the old
man praying. On Wednesday, she went early for her ash.
On some plain Tuesday, when trees were reaching erupting
arms to a sky tinged with impending wrath, V snuck a little
urn into the place where he lay. Of the cat he had said, I hope
to God I go before her. V made a hole with her small green
trowel and set the cat at his feet. Gusts were casting plastic
wreaths all over the field, caked spears landing in branches.
V struggled to her bundled feet and pedaled her palms
against each other, launching the particles into the air.

ENTER

The stranger who comes to shovel the snow doesn’t ever really
appear. A shadow of a man in the doorway, an apparition,
an atmospheric presence just outside the margin of the house.
The shadow holds a shovel in its hand. The shadow holds the shadow
of a shovel in its hand. The shadow of the shovel is distorted,
as the shadow of a crow on the snow is disfiguring the snow
in the sun. A blank field of snow in the sun disfigured by shadows.
The beauty of a blank field of snow in the sun in the pale light
of the mind, the longing to walk on it, toward it, the brightness,
to punch holes into it with our boots. It is too perfect, a bloodless
perfect it hurts us to see. We want to walk across it in our boots.