December, the Unfinished
Your icicles’ seduction slants sweet, darling—
but like the ringtone of an undialed call something lingers
off-key beneath the season’s jingle, almost
imperceptible. Flitting over blasted slush,
days dart away—deceptive sparrows. Their scent:
snow. Hard breath on the window:
white. Wet. Vanishing.
A lone horn wails in a dark barroom.
These are the conditions to which you are born:
a babe in a red-lit local dive, sweat, pulse
silk-fine. Radiator’s ribbon of steam
and longing: held fire. This is transmutation
I’m almost sure: wonder and night, the waa waa
and the oooo waa, stars and their imperfect light.
~Lexa Hillyer
From Acquainted with the Cold (Bona Fide Books, Fall 2011)
Restless and exhilarating, Lexa Hillyer’s inaugural collection spins headlong into a rush of sound and image, revealing possibilities usually hidden to us under a thin layer of ice or snow. A silky year-long song, Acquainted with the Cold begins with a seduction and ends with a call: “Barred owl, I’m ready./Convince me of eternity.” The winner of the 2011 Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize invites the reader to live life more fully, to delve into the wild possibilities open to us all. www.lexahillyer.com