I. Hands

The snowman’s vest is made of red berries

and his shoulder sockets of sticks

like steel knitting needles. Pine cones are scattered

unceremoniously on the ground and he regards

the white landscape, nose pointed north

(he has no choice in this). We stand

two feet apart and look at his hands; call it awful

but cheerful, to build a man and call him cold.

II. The Future

You should be a secretary. A beautiful,

beautiful secretary.

This is the more awful solution, clammy fingers

on a clammy set of keys, but so white and clean.

Crisp bleached sheets; the bed

like Pompeii after the bang—

Don’t call it that—

forgive me, explosion.

That’s better.

We are cheerful again.

III. Forbidden

In the movie, Hemingway said

she was a volcano in bed

which got us talking about volcanoes

and Chernobyl—both forbidden places

but for different reasons [Chernobyl: radioactive;

volcanoes: very large][Chernobyl: breaking; volcanoes:

lava][Chernobyl: tempting; volcanoes: this is where

I got upset at you]—tempting?

Radiation is in the red berries. Children play

in the snow and swallow grey ash.

But still you are afraid of volcanoes

and I fear decay.

IV. White

It’s late and the orchid has toppled over again;

the talk’s of St. Petersburg and white nights,

eighty days when the cathedral spires radiate light.

To pick the skin off a cherry is not

a hypochondriac thing,

it is a living thing—you must facilitate digestion

very deliberately because there was a procedure

and lots of blood got in places forbidden to blood.

I have a high pain tolerance—

All this means is you’re careless.

V. Back to Pompeii

The city in a flood of grey like the dust

from filed nails. The bathroom counter strewn

with used and unused flossing devices.

I don’t know what’s worse, that

or the white of the toenail crescents.

VI. St. Petersburg

Plain dumplings soaked in sour cream

and the cilantro sprig untouched.

In the square, a bride crumples her gown

to one side and adjusts lilies in her hand.

Reminds me of you.

Cold? (the hands are shivering)

Aesthetic.

VII. Wound

As in, wound up—the snowman’s scarf

coils upon coils.

This, too, was aesthetic: the camera pointed,

I posing by the pine cones,

your cracked pink hands

capturing some poison.