The snow pink sky

 
 
 
A robin pale lends air
as a shotgun carps the vale
and I shudder and shake
 and press
my hands upon the skin
 of a gentle lake.  
 
  To be alone, breathless
in a crystalline bristle
I could indulge
the reed beds  
sheltering a wren,
and smother its parched prayer.
 
I am collegiate  
in someone’s small landscape.
 
 
so in this, to find oneself
(face-down, bear drunk in the briar)
 
 with an empty, pure and unveiling  
curse,
 
 
 I know my milky eye

is a game bird’s dead eye,
 
 shot-full,
  hung up,
lungless.
 
It breathes no,
a second
    no-breath,  
 
 
no,  
 
.
 
   -  
 
and where that air waifs,
a stray amongst the clag
and copse, between the brittle bark
  and snow,
between the lids
  and the snow pink sky,
 
I wonder why
I like myself mostly after I fall
 
 
because I will stall
and the leather from my boots will fail
and my body will wail
as if there was some truth and reason  
 
to turn as ugly as the fog,  
abandoned over the vale.