Under the full blue moon of the sliding year,
above a skin of snow, hirsute with trees,
and beneath another bluff, the snatch-tangle of saplings
in dense thickets over this rolling Wisconsin—
Over such slumbering body of land,
spunk of forests, bristlejaw of bluffs and hollers,
in the shadow of a house on a hill, warm and rosy—
………………………………………………………………………………………….over this draped form
at the heart of a continent / i am traveling on the last day of a passing year,
marking miles and minutes / equally into the evening of this moment
when two years shake hands / another taking over, almost imperceptibly,
the steady tasks of time / ghosts of barns and towns sleep
behind the seldom circulation of cars / whistle-train truckers intent, like me,
on moving toward the next destiny / a bevy of snowmobiles in halogen-cold halo
wait taillight-red for my passage / cross as a herd, alien ruminants
as a shooting star passes above Mazomanie / clutching the air in my chest
with a wish on swerving speed, ice-slicked / and past it in the snowy survey
of this truck’s brightest lights / a silk shadow rustles the left curtain of the road
so slow, from the outside lane, i slow / for perhaps, only a year or two old, a buck
cloaked in raw steam rising / antlers modest on a head swinging mighty
hot breath wreathing him in plumes / and his leg from the snowbank, the hind right,
wrecked, unsleeved, folded open / as he lumbers, before the truck’s front lips
makes uneven canter to the right bank too steep / turns back passing behind my mirrorview
moves into the sinking rumple of the valley / as one body into another.
Portrait credit: JJ Dumont. A painted portrait in which a genderqueer Palestinian person with long wavy black hair that has a pale streak in front is staring directly at the viewer from against a fiery orange background. They are wearing black lipstick, large horn-rimmed glasses, and a grey and black rippled scarf. A turquoise stud earring is visible on their left ear.
Rasha Abdulhadi calls you to join them in refusing and resisting the genocide of the Palestinian people. Whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, throw it now. The elimination of the Palestinian people is not inevitable. We can refuse with our every breath and action. We must.
