I see my face in the river when it cracks
down the middle, sun becoming

more than it’s been all winter & the ice
shifting its weight underneath a warm gaze & splitting

finally apart, heaving—cold water & debris, crow carcasses & shoelaces
streaming like damp confetti, undone & gathering

at the banks under bridges near the black locust trees
stout with their bristled bellies, thorns & bright bark & soon they will flower—

billows of white pearls in the forest, thick groves bushing between hawthorn
& old barns, sheets of rusting metal, gravel pits, wild roses

sweet with the holy scent of something
ready to emerge—as if to say yes I remember your face.