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Jonathan Galassi

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Wonalancet

At the levelling, trees cut away
a shaft of clarity
cuts the thick heat

and then, out there
three yellow patches form on the nubbly green
meet at two corners, trapezoidal, neat
undesigned:

a new place, unshrouded by the mountain.

And then you make it out: the house
(that blotch in the corner of the nearest field)
the spire, cars on the Sandwich road

and distance
stretches down like a wire
over the heavy trails

from this sudden window in the mountain

reducing what we reeled about at night in
(far from the houselights
reckless, as if we could roam
forever on that floor)

until that dewy, black, unmown
emptiness is compassed
made
a bright thing I can cover with my hand,

undoing what we climbed for:
a summit, space
vibrating unnamed away from Whiteface

forest, water, haze

all our taint erased in the moment
no truck moves in New Hampshire

and nothing touching us
nothing near but air
nothing that we have to know we know.

 

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