Frostwriting

Three Poems

by Rebecca Kinzie Bastian

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Acrostic
We clap our hands and look –
In our palms the red leaves appear,
Nibbled and twinkled with stars.
There are lights in your hair.
Even the squirrels have gilded their nuts.
Riddle and sugar rolled out for deer to
Step and cut heart forms like messages –
Over the hill and into the woods – pressed and swift
Like our own celebrations, our own hands
Stinging from all the noise and cold and, yes, joy.
The stairs creak as the children bound up and down.
Icicles. Stars. A wish for fire. Mulled wine, cupful after
Cupful. Your scarf thrown rakishly over your shoulder.
Everything comes down to this.

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Fold

I keep a lark in the freezer
its field still bright when I open the door.

One rough poem
Birch bark chewed
New wrinkles around my eyes
Apples in the cold cellar

One old way
An empty wine glass
Snow specked mornings
The mutable vole

Who will remember?
Who will run fingers over
the pebbles at the bottom of the drawer?

Birch branch, sharp and minty
Apples buckled in their box
Wine gone half sour but potent
This snow melting

It is something. And I’ll give it to you
if you want.

Walk all the way to town, and keep walking.
Take just this and my favorite shoes.

 

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Via Vulpina

 

When you were a child, you searched

for the fox, followed the fox, followed the claret between

dusk and dawn. She was everything you wanted to be–

 

narrow, red and cunning. You walked the field, walked zigzag and ditch,

her tail your dark-tipped flag. You wanted her.

 

Slender as the wrist you turned in her direction. Your nostrils flared

toward lemmings and beetles and snakes.

 

Where she lay she did not leave a mark.

 

She moved through barn and garden,

the reeds around the lake,

swallowed every shadow.

 

You longed, ribs showing dangerous hunger. Her teeth. You were not

your mother’s lap. You wore your scarlet dress torn at the knees.

 

She was never

 

black or white, she was russet, Fennec, Swift and Gray, sometimes dark,

and it was in her shifting you wanted to slide, go with her through

 

her shapes, find your way lower. She was not caught. She did not call.

Her way was under, shadow weaving into the wheat, into the tufted
grass. She fit

 

a chink of stone,

a stalk of burdock,

under the oak root’s tongue. You followed.

 

You left no spoor, flattened no grass, breathed her blend and dunning.

 

What looked like hiding

was really a charm for finding,

for the sharper way in. You crawled on your belly.

 

If you were quiet, if you were slight, if your movements worked like folded
    water,

she would come, lay her head in your lap, a flame, the one you never could
    name.

 

Now on the roadside – haunch; white belly; fine, sleek hide;

and her banner – the flag you attended no longer advancing. Stop. 
Leave the car.

 

Press your cheek against her shoulder.