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Ann Dancy

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Confinement

That winter the stairs were always unlit.
Home late from work, I’d feel my way, unlock the door by touch
and before I pressed the switch look up, wait
to see my lamp put out a saucer to the dark.
The skylight was almost clear then,
night came down to it at once,
a movement quick and weighty as water.

At first I’d count you by the moon, by my own fingers,
half believing I could feel you in my skin.
Then it snowed for weeks, accumulated on the glass,
filtered a tracing paper air. A diffuse frost
charged the constant underwater I crossed and crossed
mindless as a swimmer, keeping time for you.

At night, in the cold sheets, unable to sleep
I began to count you in days and hours,
feel you turn in my body heat.

Tonight you’re asleep. I leave an overheated house,
go out to the yard for air.
A neighbour calls me to the fence to watch.
He’s opening the ice on his pond. The fish come up
preserved by their cold blood, their trust.
I close a frozen room on you, your placid drowning face,
and we discuss the nature of confinement and release.

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