JAMES OWENS

Salamander

Like a clutch of wet leaves
kicked up in the snow
on the path beside the swamp.
Ice frozen to its sides
he couldn’t brush clean.
Eyes frozen to blind shards.
Trembling. — He left it there,
but all day, he feels
it dying, an amputation
hugged to his chest,
a sleeve in the wind,
soft with ghost pain.
This will happen to some of us.
A spark misfires
in the hibernating brain,
and you wake to the wrong season.
Born again from the nourishing,
amniotic mud, ready
to thrum with love
for the day—
you crawl into
a stunned world
of inconceivable white fire.






James Owens has two books of poetry, An Hour is the Doorway (Black Lawrence Press, 2007) and Frost Lights a Thin Flame (Mayapple Press, 2007). He lives in New Carlisle, Indiana. He blogs at www.klagewelt.blogspot.com (voixettemps@gmail.com)



Boxcar Poetry Review - ISSN 1931-1761