Miss Cholia

Sweet Miss Cholia, what do you see? How long have you been here, waiting for me? I find you where the cedar sobbed its bitter resin, drop by drop. the branches neither bowed nor stirred they simply never thought to stop You favor lintels left askew, where varnish puckered into rue; you thumbed each warped and wavering stave as though it retained what no one gave. Pockets harbored ledger-dust, misfiled receipts, gilt crust; the forfeiture of orchard yield, a survey pin beneath the field. You measure not what disappeared, but every fraction persevered: the tincture clinging to the glass, the imprint after signets pass. At last I dare to follow close, expecting thread. Yet instead, you sink a thumb of oxide-red into the mortar’s crumbling bed. Pulling no guideline from your hand, nor offer reasons why we stand. Tend the quiet soot that gathers at the chimney’s foot, and hoard the usury of things delayed the interest on a debt unpaid. You pinch the nerve of what is past to make the temporary last: a deliberate, wintering art— through the iron valve that slows the heart. Sweet Miss Cholia, I see what you see, nothing is gone. it repeats within me.