1.
a sky in whiteness
washed out by gray

your absence
washed out
like a bit of sugar water
on the stonework

these self-portraits in the nude

these little crimson dots at edge of eyesight

the moss jade among dry leaves

only waterfowl above
birch sun
only half remembered

2.
but that is all
the wind off shore
the abyss of enfolding light
a shatter of your syntax
squinting at a fettered sun
that is all

unreasonable lenses refract
the small rain
a desolate speech
meditating on self
as here on a windy platform

a pale shadow
so fortunate so clear

3.
you never wanted to be read into

your voice like a broken water
a burned atlas

did you ever see my eyes

the palm’s open
the shadows return
again
a grey light
disappearing into
an oblique sky

without dimension

if only I could sleep
I’d sleep in your arms

4.
the sky is quiet
cloudless

grey brown buildings
black pinewoods
late in the afternoon

I remember decades ago
the cloudless sky
reddening over fir trees

it was wide and still

S. Gilpin is a poet originally from Portland, OR, living in Las Vegas, NV, as a Black Mountain Institute Ph.D. Fellow in Poetry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Gilpin received a BA in English from the University of Utah, and an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, with work appearing in various journals and magazines, most recently in Prism Review, Prime Number, and Ruminate.