Fingerless gloves
Snow swept from the porch boards
The door propped open
Working on a poem on a poem
Sighing as the wind sighs on the hill:
SIT TIGHT
When the old clock
That woke the dead
With its loud tick fell silent
Eternity moved in.
A mirror looked toward the door
With eyes of a dog
Who wanted to be taken
Out for a walk.
Straws from the old broom
Scattered over the dark-staining melt
Scattered over the dark-staining melt
Things thawed to their essence
Water and magic
Flow through us.
—Internal poem by Charles Simic, The Threepenny Review, Spring 2018.
