COLEMAN CHILDRESS

Broken Cabins on the Branch

objects creek the moments of
greying time near the branch-sign

          welcom we co

that’s white with older-white around it
and the sky,
too, blue with white around it.

A handful of rust, a floor, a rivershore;
your eyes in the window, the glass of the grey window,
“Well let’s stay here a while, can we?”

The furrowing of branches, of hardwood, of sun.
your hands statuary with tranchelight

                                                 "... la mémoire d’une image particulière n’est
                                           que regret pour un moment particulier.”

and I thought this while you spoke slow,
starring outside at deer beneath the grey fog

slowly folding me in
the thought
of time like warm
brown eyeholding

                                        the whole world can be found in your eyeimage
and there, daguerreotypes float of your civility
                                        lost within its own creation. in the
disentanglement of the immense voices. in
                                        the dilapidated house.

***

these     images     mine, and
you I see       without      you
lost upon      the  sound
of a      hyacinth lin-
ed      river.