At a thought’s
margin, phrases
splinter, litter breath.
Mudscape—

a given metaphor—
assembles the unsaid.

Ashen, angular
patches of ice
jut into so much
swamped geometry.

Let the day cohere

in the day’s breakage
and mimic spring.

Gauzy sunburst
striping the thaw.

***

Joseph Massey is the author of Illocality (Wave Books) and At the Point (Omnidawn), as well as many other books and chapbooks. He lives and writes in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts.