Poetry by Catherine Pond

Dispersal

That town was the same when I finally returned:
hay bales belted down by frost, hillsides glassy.

River heavy with porcelain plates. The pine trees
stood tall in their refusal.

I was afraid to forgive you, alone, narcotic
in that forsaken house. Bandstand glowing

like a dollhouse in a dream. You were a child
with me. Each year I came home from the city

and the landscape seemed less lucid.
The ice broke and reformed.

The moon stood watch over my motel
like a sister appearing silently in the doorway.

Deer in Bright Snow

Deer in bright snow.
Darkness like a centrifuge

spinning, pulling everything towards the edges.
The trick is not to care

when she kisses me. Not to touch
the death drive passing back and forth

between us. Any day now.
Heat rises under my eyes.

In the restaurant neon signs face outward
advertising beer. Genesee, Schaefer.

In another life she leaves him.
We kiss until the windows gleam with rain

or night empties into the soft whoosh
of cars along the state road.