Mercury day poetry: Kenney’s ‘Solstice’

This week’s poem comes from one of our favorite poets (and a good friend), Richard Kenney. This one is from his volume, Orrery. As the title might suggest, Kenney is a poet who is keenly aware of the movements of the planets.

Solstice

Christmas: quince, persimmon,

pomegranate, rose;

glass flowers twirling

in a glass case,

closed. A candle blown–

Now the world is locked and motionless.

Binoculars left on the sill are laced

with hoar frost– frozen compass rose.

The only color left across

this stark, inert field of view

is the red stem of the thermometer

itself. I watch it shrink back down

its bulb. This world will be too hard.

I press my wrist against

the bull’s-eye windowpane a moment,

imagining my own blood

shrinking back along the glassworks

of the veinous system

to the heart.

Posted by Bobbie