WINDCHILL

A change
       in the weather
is known to be extreme.

What it is not
       is managed
             or imagined.

       Loss is loss is loss

       repeated. And
breathing stings
       below zero.

COMMUTE

Rain on
the lake, its
barrels of
paint; a few
leaves move
in circles
on the
surface.

A song
borrowed
until useless
is a new vacancy
felt—cars and
all, cars and
all—in the
same place
you wake
to day
after day.

And said
music, its
room, turns
from thought
to water to
words—my
love, you’re
doing fine,
you’re on TV—
to birds on the
periphery
where
an oil rig
floats in fog.

POEM

occupant-starved
margin

bent

on whoever
you are

Copyright © Shannon Tharp, 2012. All three poems are from the book 'The Cost of Walking' (Skysill Press, UK)