“Cold dark deep and absolutely clear”
~Elizabeth Bishop

 

Sandra Marchetti
The water a sheet of beat tin, it is a June song
in March, ripples for welcome. Army and gray
colors tell us why the season resists the call

of our bodies; displayed on the nightstand, the interior
brave replica of summer, stilted
in daguerreotype, printed gauzily. The white light

needed over our shoulders to see the ream, the functioning
slide. The bed is yellow—a blushing pastel paper
out of context in the hoarfrost season. Even

the white bell doilies breathe in dust
from the half-light time. Not entirely shade
but clear gray out across the ledge

and many measures more, a little water flits
between a split-trunk tree. It is
what we imagine June to be: a sliver

of wet movement, an arc that asks for colors
to ice it hotly and shake the shake of gray.

 

Sandra Marchetti is the author of Confluence, a full-length collection of poetry from Sundress Publications (2015). She is also the author of four chapbooks of poetry and lyric essays, including Sight Lines (Speaking of Marvels Press, 2016), Heart Radicals (ELJ Editions, 2016), A Detail in the Landscape (Eating Dog Press, 2014), and The Canopy (MWC Press, 2012). Sandra’s poetry appears widely in Poet Lore, Blackbird, Subtropics, Ecotone, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. Her essays can be found at The Rumpus, Words Without Borders, Mid-American Review, Barrelhouse, and other venues. Sandy earned an MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry from George Mason University and lives in the Chicagoland area.