2/1 from Ambient 1
BY RACHEL HARKAI
This is the space between water
and frozen water,
where I woke on the morning of our first snow.
Reveling in a change of season,
in a change of scenery,
I wrote a letter on beauty.
But I had no motor to keep those tones
going and now
this frigid, cracking glass won’t leave.
How does one sustain this?
This is the space
where I write it all down,
where I try to remember,
but can only freeze things,
can only make them still.
In this scene
I stand over a sinkful of tresses,
ice clings to the panes
and later, I fall in love.
When I had long hair, I could hide in it.
In this scene
drafts seep through your window.
There are tiny tealights,
my hands are too cold
and we laugh and laugh.
This hollow ring
only fingers circling thin rims,
a sustain I cannot capture.
In this scene
I am in the empty kitchen
filling egg cartons
with cold water. Here I am
freezing things again.
This is the space
for low tones, for the strings
of the old piano
that, unraveled, rattle
as I tiptoe across the floor—the music
of a house asleep in winter.