Heat Goes Out Walking in the Cold

K. A. Hays

It seems possible, and I've been told,

that even the dying, who don't mean to,

stow at the ribs yellow mint,

at the liver the waft

of split tomatoes, and April's peas

wire and tendril up, unruly,

at the backs of the eyes.

The old story: Decembers,

fiddleheads unwind

in a cat's worn foot pads --

and far in a man's deaf ear

tug the brown wade

and gold peeping

of May ponds.

Hard to believe, most days,

that under the ice-tilted walks,

plantain aches yellowly, hums

in August air. Or that even

in the spine of a mother

who grieves for her child

wakes dame's rocket, unwilled,

gangly, soon

a sapling with the tough ears

of elephants.

That's the sapling the dead

blaze into, summer walking in winter.

Yes. In wind-wracked limbs,

green wick, thaw the core.