Like quartz grazing on an herb of boulangerite:
as if they will never melt or separate.

Sainted nature—
this stiff new pretty physics
possessing the grass.

Both stillnesses, both fixations have feathers;
the gulls can watch
the frost’s grow.

At this hour, only the perdition
of a rising workforce
fires up around their haven.

But when the gulls begin to pace,
each of these absolute regions of reward

is pressed into evaporation,
releasing us to the flexibility
that bends among colors,

the wet paint of what we’ll brush against
and be.
Their wings break

the gray crystal immobility—
bird-elbows and grass-blade-knees.
Expect

they’ll jump and spring; do not expect
the sinless exquisite
will ever be ready

for the thaw permitted it.