Letter Spoken in Wind
Today we walked the inlet Nybøl Nor remembering how to tread on frozen snow. Ate cold sloeberries that tasted of wind—a white pucker— spat their sour pits in snow. Along the horizon, a line of windmills dissolved into a white field. Your voice on the phone, a gesund auf dein keppele you blessed my head. Six months now since I've seen you. There are traces of you here, your curls still dark and long, your woven dove, the room you stayed in: send your syllables, I am swimming below the tidemark. Words shed overcoats, come to me undressed, slender-limbed, they have no letters yet. It is the festival of lights, I have no candles. I light one for each night, pray on a row of nine lighthouses.
From Pulleys & Locomotion (Black Lawrence Press, 2009). Copyright © 2009 by Rachel Galvin. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.