North Poem by Leslie Philibert

a puzzle of rivers and ice
a dead fish dances under a witch`s dress

birthless you have become an ancient fir
seagulls bend slowly in the salt air
and chatter over the freezing whores;

the sinewed ships are full of string
and cloth and wood that strain
out the songs of men lost to earth,

so pull through the alleys full of water,
thick-footed with the glazed eyes of fish,

winter`s door ever open,
drawn from the coast to higher ground;
pure and wolf with frost.