Morning Feast                                                                                                          

The river's gone sumi-e.  In the grit-flocked commuter

train window, silver ducks dot the patinated waters. 

Knowledge of the approaching city drops like a tattered

scrim, lighter than imagining, of snowfall gasping into

the just-cold air, reminding me you were right about

revolution. That it always lies in the belly of the thing

it aims to devour.

Who are we but the sum of our own tattered potential, 

cutting into the mist, high as winter's blackbird,

hungering through the scarcity for a frozen morning feast?

                                                       for Philip Elliot Slater




MR/Metropolitan Review, State University of New York, 2015