GRACE EGBERT
CELADON
Did I pull your hand
toward me to see my name written there
in the crevices, ash and pigment.
Was I a demiurge, was I white on a white Pegasus.
Gray refracts light in the iris, pale mountain,
pale horizon :
field burning.
Helicopters, steel locusts, ore threads
turning to turning black plumes,
her hands covered in oil. She’s holding her hair and wind,
her dimples threaded with steel.
You’re shaking my hand, pulling it toward you:
in it an ivory antelope tooth: celadon,
seaglass.
Antelope,
I say—
Snow,
you reply.
Ocean—
Snow.
Clavicle—
Snow.