HISS
Your words sift down like snow,
cold and ornamental,
each flake reflecting a feeble spark
before disappearing into drifts.
Such a pretty way to go blind:
dazzled by your soft white storm.
I am losing my senses, one by one.
Muffled sound descends
like the hiss of deafness.
Flavorless diamond dust
coats my tongue.
Have the air and ground
forgotten their green perfume?
What you say feels like the sting of sleet,
just before the tender flesh,
exposed,
grows numb.
Christine Boyka Kluge
CHRISTINE BOYKA KLUGE has received seven Pushcart Prize nominations. Her first book of poetry, Teaching Bones to Fly, is forthcoming from Bitter Oleander Press. Her writing appears in Tupelo Press's prose poetry anthology, No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets, edited by Ray Gonzalez.
