Gradient
dusk sucks pigment
from a canvas of land
gulls go with it
drag west
its planetary turn
*
the day dissolves but you
knew that already
frost accrues
precipitates a storm
a radiator’s dull roll
eclipses wind’s hum
temperature degrades
snow hails thick mist
blotting visibility
*
detached icicles
strewn
sidelong
about the bank
pavement interjects
hastens frozen
matter’s
slow swerve
burch branch mitigated
you’d say
broken
by the breeze
culled
in the storm’s
effacing thrust
*
attenuating
from the eaves
ice divides my sight
lingers
in the porch’s
raucous light
John James is the author of The Milk Hours, selected by Henri Cole for the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. An image-text pamphlet, Winter, Glossolalia, is forthcoming from Black Spring Press. His poems appear in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, PEN America, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is pursuing a PhD in English and Critical Theory at UC Berkeley.