This winter I learn to knit: a green and purple scarf,
which could be my last undoing, this casting on
and binding off, a way to connect

each moment to the next. It’s a swaddling
operation for a mind that can’t be stilled. Because we are no longer
real to one another, this winter I walk on snow crust

gone vitreous with cold, shadows on it
lavender, green ice on the pond. A plastic sheet that shreds
and shreds in wind. At times, this park

looks beautiful, but I’m a stranger in it.
Only phrases keep me: made
of sterner stuff, they say. They say aloof or politic or

soon when the weather breaks. The thornbush faintly
red now, and two unyielding greys: green-grey branches
pinioned on grey sky. The snow is a constant

burning, and my body—slow, molecular—also a kind of fire
almost, they say, unstoppable. When did it come
to this. I hear myself say harbor me

although there is no harbor I can see
no one else to speak to,
and the trail breaks off

to every possible willow. Around me, ice crust circles
with a gleam and glare
that holds me, then gives way beneath my boot. The sky

in its abstract sphere, unfurls. God exists
as the Nothing who refuses to reply. Today I have to practice
how to breathe. Memory’s insistent,

too dangerous to touch. Each small amnesia
till I ghost myself.