Fritz Eifrig has been writing poems on and off for almost 40 years. His work has appeared in Poetry Quarterly, The Bookends Review, The Hiram Poetry Review, and Foxglove Journal. He lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. the inquiry of memorysunlight spins within cold eddies flows over rocks feathers along the drowsy sand, its bright fingers verge on lurking belly, back, and fins; darting away, ungrasped, dark speckled scales wink reproach. inside this unsteady gleam evanescent water scarps are caught then lost, a shifting window flashing clear and true then gone. telegramrain in early morning before the sun. down roof and walls talking now through earth. to join, to make a course connecting across land and time and into memories untended and unguarded-- discovers passage through silted causeways of the heart. dreamed messages pass away, disappearing, fog in garden shade, trickling water the only sign of something said. fermataleaves lie dreaming in the grass and across the street, brushing broken bottles, colors mute in morning light. west wind cuts among them, cold whispers taunt: what once was. they turn and twist but will not wake-- a season of sleep, a time to die. crow on a wire calls a hole into the horizon. a chill across my jacket. what will the wind tell me? crossing wabash at illinoispause at street-side, curb, stairs, and bridges rise beside a concrete bounded river. taillights crest curves, kissed in pale morning starshine; somewhere birds must be waking. recall the touch of light across red hills and bluegreen pine, the smell of dew and hide, wet seeds and stone. shining feather caught on bark, gleam of white antler point, my dark hair rolling in the young sky. would that those footsteps had held their shape, clear trails through sleepy grasses where I passed, eager then and whole. old songs float like piñon smoke crowding this gray march morning with the fluttering of another time. before an ebbingwe were young and high, climbing
beneath a cavern of stars, dune crest and its scrub brushing feet and fingertips. we sat and watched the fishermen work for smelt, heavy rubber waders sounding through the breakers, slow work of nets glittering full of scales and hooks. a rising stillness wrapped our heads and muffled time’s insistence, yet all around us endless motion, the tone of eons thrumming from deep below and back again, little bubbling secrets rushing out across the dark wet sand. that was summer’s dawning, witness to a subtle tide, under slow curves of moonlight, the shapes of our faces looking east.
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