Shawl

Your shawl hangs blue and gold
and green in the rising sun,

so still that the world
rocks around it,

and the light seems more 
of evening, and the end of time

than of any morning
we will know again.

There are these times
when the light comes level,

through an overmounted press
of time and distance,

but locked—and still—
when I am afraid to look up,

afraid to see what the sky may be doing:
it is too far, too high, too cold.

Muted teal, the gold 
of pollen scattered on wet sidewalks,

the green of ancient copper fittings:
to hang so still now

as if your shoulders
had never shrugged against its weave.