— after it’s

 

said and done — at best it’s lesser influences that matter

 

— they accumulate like the discrete nuance of seasons

that insinuate the temperatures of their effects into tendrils

 

twisting to the nuisance misdirections of shadow and light

 

 

 

— it’s — those — that irritate a room with sweat and overwhelm

being well — well lost in the illusions of what self-control

 

shivers with a virus the few extreme nights that remain

 

memorized in the immunity of a cell’s exhaustion

 

 

 

— surely the accidental infinitesimal aggravations that peck

and nag at and infect the nakedness of even the best defense

 

amount to getting along as well as possible midsummer

 

 

 

with the hovering whirr a mosquito — zeroing in — finds

a pheromone in the diaphaneity — or — winter — fever

 

chattering like mad — inside the fires of the surrounding ice

Roger Desy

Barnwood poetry magazine