Mortification (3) Poem by Lisa Russ Spaar

Always the scythe of hours,
now, as everywhere,
even in loral light of late winter

lengthening in hair-splits
on snow sash,
cloven pelage of bramble,

starlings in unruly ghetto
at the yard's edge.
And the shadows accusatory,

narrowing like eye wounds,
his what are you thinking?
Still, I hold, and consider the soul:

never to see it in this life.
Yet in silk fissure
of time with you,

making of privacy
one totem, one branch:
what is that poultice bloom

if not the soul falling toward us,
wet, gasping -
or else our bodies rising?