Talking about the Wind

Katie Peterson

I hate 

 to invoke the 

 seasons. They 

dismantle（拆除，取消） us. 

 We do the same to them. 

 I hate to say the spring. It's become 

bone-deep routine. Nice going, 

 May, permission 

 or bluster, even the little 

leaves that top 

 the cottonwoods, 

 you take 

(shrunk coinage) you take 

 charge and a share 

 of everything, leaving the roots 

and skeletons of these, who say

 obscenities（淫秽）, they've 

 been wanting 

to say them to you all year, 

 with what you've done, 

 do now, and soon will. Opposites 

I say, always the most 

 taxing. That one tree 

 without moving willing to walk 

into the wind all by her heroic lonesome 

 until my eyes move and her branches 

 tie her to a sister next to her. Even 

my winnowing self, which loves distinctions, 

 confuses her with her. 

 With these actions your world 

takes off a layer from us. 

 A hand mimes a knife drop, as practice. 

 I'm close to nothing 

all at once, and it makes 

 small sense, as much as 

 talking about the wind as an amount, 

paid or refused. Or throwing my love 

 as I always do 

 over sleeping things, the slow, and what the wind 

makes by blowing over, 

and then throwing myself over my love—