BY JEREMY NATHAN MARKS

Copyright is held by the author.

If you were never raised
on winter spike or racket shoes
those last miles from a crack
in the lake

Had you never seen dorsal fin
shores, yellow striped with the piss
of wanderers, false summer in snow
and human flares

Then you would never imagine
how they streak from saunas
survive dark months by counting
tit nipping owls

The bunkered pleasures of tiny
birds, it will be thaw time soon
tumescent sugars and someone
says over pancakes, how do you

Make out with no heated sheets
but it’s always been like this:
keep seasons close and time is not

A factor of ten
sleeping in your
scent and skin. 

***

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada and works in adult education. Recent poetry and fiction appears/will appear in places like Studio One, Dissident Voice, The Medley, The Red Fern Review, Right Hand Pointing, Down in the Dirt, Wilderness House, Amaranth, As It Ought To Be, and 365 Tomorrows.