The air smells of rhubarb, occasional

Roses, or first birth of blossoms, a fresh,

Undulant hurt, so body snaps and curls

Like flower. I step through snow as thin as script

Watch white stars spin dizzy as drunks, and yearn

To sleep beneath a patchwork quilt of rum.

I want the slow, sure collapse of language

Washed out by alcohol. Lovely Shelley,

I have no use for measured, cadenced verse

If you won’t read. Icarus-Iike, I’ll fall

Against this page of snow, tumble blackly

Across vision to drown in the white sea

That closes every poem — the white reverse

That cancels the blackness of each image.