Glaze Poem by Talvikki Ansel

White putty under finger nails,
milky on fingerprints and the back of your t-shirt,
pushed between mullion and glass
it curls away when I press
and pull back my hand, putting the glass in
to glaze.

A pane in the bedroom
fallen onto the porch, three jagged
pieces and a handful of splinters
on grainy shingles. Sash too soaked
to set the new glass.
Outside in the dark,
sloppy wet lilacs. The dog restless,
cold pressing at the curtain of yellow in cloth
I sewed, too yellow, it suffuses the room.
One window with a pie-piece, broken corner
the squirrel stuck its head through
before it leaped to the apple's trunk,

the road, gallery with its paintings,
landscapes and glazed pots.
To not keep it at bay: the glaze of frost on shingles,
grass blades tipped in minty relief,
the infinite angles of trunk and leaf
and the white lilacs, Lincoln's coffin, the broken window
the wind comes through from that teeming world,
carrying the mud and salt.