Amber
Inside the sugar maples’ locked branches
something clear has begun
to come loose; it will be caught, held,
plied with intense heat.
I pity the pink tips of those branches,
their forced march in the dark
before the clocks catch up.
And I pity myself, swaddled bones
scraping food from the same black pot.
I hear the maples, their drip.
I watch the sky above the sap house
darken with ash, light up
with sparks as the boiling continues
into the night and the crude
outlines of the bright windows beckon.
I zip my high-necked dress up the back,
its straight silver teeth obediently close;
I’m so cold it feels like music.
by Amy Dryansky
from How I Got Lost So Close To Home
Alice James Books, 1999
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