Ice Age by John Kuligowski

Inside my cupped hands the wind
was a wintering eye shaped by thought
to permanence and by whispers to break.
Inside the unctuous sky, each word
crystallized by your breath reminded the air
it was slowed and sharpened, made to pry
open an ambient screen of flesh.
Each molecule was parsecs in distance
from any point of reference, expanded
to epochs in that warp and woof,
and unintelligible as any of the living dead.
All permanence is thought until shattered,
your voice crying “look out!” as an icicle
plummets, viewed before voiced.




John Kuligowski, USA