Long Nights by Jenny Xie

Long Nights

Ice, entire cakes of it.

Crows feed on sand.

So poor is this season

the ground steals color

from the tree-shadows.

            •

Can it be that nothing

is as far as here?

Just look!

How much past we have

to cover this evening–

             •

Come to think of it

don't forget to pick

off this self and that self

along the way.

Though that’s not right–

you spit them out like pits.

             •

If there is a partition between

the outer and inner worlds,

how is it that some water in me churns

between the mountain ranges?

How is it we are absorbed so easily

by the ground—

             •

Long nights for simple words.

             •

  

Slant rhyme of current thinking

and past thinking.

A chewed over hour, late.

Where the long ago past

and the future come

to settle scores.

              •

  

Traveling and traveling,

but so much interior

unpicked over by the eyes.

              •

Nothing is as far as here.