there to be found

A Poem by Gabrielle Delahoussaye

Will you return again
To the place we carved in the snow bank
That hollow wrought against winter with a child’s designless zeal
Have your fingers clawed at the edges and kept an eyelet open
Though heavy drifts mount against remembrance?
Christ won’t cease to weep white ashes on our poor tangled heads.
On our sweet wonted paths he moves implacably towards his Gethsemane.
But brush now the icy veil from the entrance
For there you’ll find me still, eternally suspended in a momentary flare.
See how well I’ve kept the dream intact!
I’ve pressed into my clothes the candied burn of your cigarette
I’ve woven into copper braids crape myrtles from your father’s house
And each morning I bathe in the glint of your eyes at the instant we met!
My very features, friend, are fixed in the attitude you loved best.
Come trace them now! Hold fast the prism, composed of you and I and studied stillness!
Once it shatters I will be all dissolved.

Gabrielle Delahoussaye holds degrees in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Dallas.