CHIMNEY GROWING OUT OF RUBBLE

In a clearing one longs
For the forest’s depths,
The substance of amnesia,
Subdued blue hues,

But finds instead a past—
A landscape salvaged
From memory’s wreckage,
An ambivalence called home:

An empty stone foundation
Tilting inward. The river
Between freezes and thaws.
Surface ice shatters and cants,

Freezes once again to offer
A jagged passage across.

ERIC PANKEY is the author of many collections of poems, most recently Augury (Milkweed Editions, 2017). He is the Heritage Chair in Writing at George Mason University.