Tristesse, tristezza, Traurigkeit, smutek— lips pucker and swell at the thought of it, the weather ceasing to throb where clouds drift and separate, ghastly fingers: silence in the middle of a lake—all around us the great herons are gliding to shore. They stare on one leg into the shallows, snip out algae-stained creatures who never harmed more than a worm or two, just as we wonder how it was that we asked for so little to just breathe. A racket coming from the highway, smothering exhaust of truck rigs, flags flapping, mobile homes in tow, wide load, our last childhood memory of snow.
John Allman | The Trotsky/Stalin Sonnet Contents | Mudlark No. 48 (2012)