Sean Reagan

Baking Bread in Winter

i.

     a swan     late flying calypso     beckoning when most
unyielding

     lucky sevens     in that house     built up hills     uneven and
relieving     “the word you want is grace”

     again with clocks     and sunswept bastions     borders     home
as cold as cold is often

     the lake always     sunken cutters out of sunlight     ideas of
angels     appealingly so     when drunk out to beyond

     or is it     recognition     what mirrors fear     six cups
white     what grace does consider

     late to all beckoners     which     belies and leaves     behind
borders     a view of water     all so cold

     sleeping dogs     untellable truths     which home is
another circle     this time eggs

ii.

     what place is     “lots of fun for everyone”     yellowed quilts
to telegraph     age     or poverty     a paring knife

     carefully cutting     is summer nearly     or crows on 112
useless in rain     “you will not need the crusts”

     or mail     pursuing rivers     sleep or else     music the mist
of “this is what you do”

     found harmonics     vest torn to shit     skeletal longitudes
nations past where     shoes what place

     is this     now     a roiled brook     ever falling trees
hollering frogs all     evening the sea

     “all these pancakes”      becoming quite thick     whose
sunflowers     did not ever give me any     in that gone summer

iii.

     “i try and try but i keep getting no luck”      “everything is
mixed very well”     retail shops unidentified     stifled so

     “be very careful”     a beer a bear beyond     a shoulder not
a cavern     or candle     when inserted     “comes out clean”

     seen from time to time     “no description available”
bracken is the lost     the moon is to trout     not new at all

     or else broken     alongside toys     “sift this all together”
address or do not     the accident     there

     is getting there     bread as beads     as maps     notes
“lost is lost always”     and then

iv.

     swan     to all calypsos     snow refracted up     to bent as
herons     lifting wing

     at night     dismal alerts     in 1973     on gravel driveways
lost kisses lost hope     all lost

     all interior     towards meaning     wooden floorboards
promptly a legacy     potential recipes     and you

     your “wisdom of deuce”     form “less so always”     as fonts
before a storm     grace the new line     making old love

 
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