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No visible horizon.
I drive to the end of the world. A heart, the only dark object. Shadow as reflection & dislocation. White cloud layer as snow. As my mother’s hair. Skin- light: an arc of moon. The child in my mind’s eye. I have spent my life explaining. My mother, left in some field. The car, stuck in the snow. The guardrail, unharmed. I have spent my life being defined by what leaves, what arrives. Invisible to the heart. Driving into the storm where I was born. Where to begin again—where? Not a tree in sight. Not another car. I have spent my life trying to find a home, but I fear being found will make no difference. The moon, an eye in the snow. I struggle to keep the car on the road. The tires tug me toward the guardrails. Sweating, the snow appears as light. As a child, I thought I could swallow it & become the world. Carceral, this act of disappearance. Snow- light: a haze of bodies passing each other without seeing. At a turn, the storm leaps. I slow. Each mile, moving further away, I used to want to know where I began. Now, I only want somewhere to soften against me. Axe. Peony. Poplar. Light. |
About This Unit: Poems on Family and Finding Other Lines of Symmetry |
CHELSEA DINGMAN’s first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). Her second poetry collection, Through a Small Ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize (University of Georgia Press, 2020). She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.
