We live at the bottom of a sea of snowflakes.

They fall ruled by a mathematics

no one can resolve. When my brother


reads my poems, his brain turns to mineral.

The dawn's yarn

knits itself into an evening sky.  (Flowers are snowflakes


grown wise.)

If I empty the wallet of my memory, evoke the mathematics

of emotion, scrape the excess mineral


of my loyalty, I can recognize my brother

as he was, soldering the radio together.  The smoke, the       mineral

encrusting the hot iron, the pure snow


of radio static, "Woolly Bully." Brotherhood

of sparrows, mathematics

of prayer, accumulation of snowflakes

We live at the bottom of a sea of snowflakes.

They fall ruled by a mathematics

no one can resolve. When my brother


reads my poems, his brain turns to mineral.

The dawn's yarn

knits itself into an evening sky.  (Flowers are snowflakes


grown wise.)

If I empty the wallet of my memory, evoke the mathematics

of emotion, scrape the excess mineral


of my loyalty, I can recognize my brother

as he was, soldering the radio together.  The smoke, the       mineral

encrusting the hot iron, the pure snow


of radio static, "Woolly Bully." Brotherhood

of sparrows, mathematics

of prayer, accumulation of snowflakes


sloping against the basement window,

night walks like a brother

up from the bus stop and pauses in an urn


of lamplight on the sidewalk to smoke.

It's the winter we learn to breathe mineral,

every breath is a breath earned;


confident I'll see somehow another summer;

not certain whether I'll see this brother

again this or any other season.