after “Path on the Ice” by Akseli Gallen-Kallela
Not so much trees as
antennas. Masts made
of thin trunks speared
into the wet snow,
a few green needles
to catch the radio waves
playing our song. I listen
to the caramel-colored
slush shift and trickle
under the carpet of daylight.
Puzzle-piece ice breaks.
Dark water opening
its many eyes. Remember
our first thaw?
I don’t. Or rather, I can
only remember earth,
soft and cold and gleaming
where the sun had eaten
snow into diamonds.
One day, winter. The next,
joyous green. We danced
like shaking saplings,
like antennas in the wind.
What does it say about me
that I think about this now
on a late summer day?
Sometimes ice melts too
fast, even when I want it gone.
Antennas
Dane Hamann works as an editor and indexer for a textbook publisher in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University, later serving as the poetry editor of TriQuarterly for over five years. His chapbook Q&A was published by Sutra Press and his micro-chapbooks have been included in multiple Ghost City Press Summer Series. His first full-length collection A Thistle Stuck in the Throat of the Sun was published by Kelsay Books in 2021.