Just two branches of an elm
Contemplating the sky,
Or a snowman’s spindly arms
Grasping for warmth of a nearby window;
***
Just lines of time sketched
Into the surface of skin;
***
A first draft of age
A record of both worries and bright ideas,
Just as a teenage girl carves
Lovelorn letters into the trunk of a tree—
Time draws her lines onto me;
***
Between un-ageing eyes
They crease like two starlit nerves,
Febrile, effervescent, a sign of life;
***
Are they really from frowning or simply thinking?
