~ANDREW FRISARDI~

NO PHOTO

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            —for John Haines


1.

In an old photo of you bent
Over your traps and nets,
Your body’s shape is darker
Even than the Alaska ridge
In the distance. You were almost
The age that I am now—by now,
A fiction that survives reality.


2.

To run and run and not look back
Is the fate of one who is born
Into a state of perpetual war.
Home can be built from what’s
At hand, to touch the world
You have to let it go.


3.

You seem the very face of snow,
The arms and legs of the wood
You stacked split on the porch.
Where do spring’s profusions head
In winter? No photo I hold
Could trace them. And you can’t stay
Forever but the trees face north.




 
© by Andrew Frisardi