excerpts from Pictures of the Weather
Check the mail. Maybe it was delivered
in the middle of the night. I love mail
and your face in the dark. Last week I opened
a letter. It was dark, a letter written at night,
and you could tell by how it started
in the middle. The night is delivered to us
nightly. We don’t have to ask for it. The mail
by now delivered to your face, where
there is also waiting. The middle, night.
The future. Is it a grave, or slush? You are
probably wondering this, too. In another,
more specific room. And since we can
no longer play with snowmen, how about
we shoot arrows in the lawn and mark
their graves? I am wondering about
the future, but it doesn’t feel that important
right now. You are picturing a place, with
specific snow. I am asking you to play in it.
I’m “sad.” I walk to the park. I get “high.”
I get high and I'm still sad waving at myself
in the park. Floodlights take over the lawn.
The lawn is now this pool of light that will
electrocute me. My shadow and the light.
The light taking off and landing. Taking off
my sadness and getting high. Getting high
and handing it back to myself. Sadness handed
back in a little yellow bag.
TIMOTHY MICHALIK is a Michigan born poet and an MFA candidate at NYU, where they teach undergraduates and edit poetry for Washington Square Review. The founding editor of the journal/press Copenhagen, they are the author of two chapbooks, Neopastoral (Pétroglyphes) and Moscow, Iowa (Umpteen Triangles).