A hatchet with which to chop at the frozen seas inside us

to wake to winter     in the coming out of the time of year when they release the masterpieces, but to be still in the other night. some drown in movies. some prefer the unfinished ungovernable recital, a mystical ecology where one dies in a camp, or rolls out with the dice on the sidewalk among boys with cardboard shields and plays dead in white crinoline. what if paradise was only lifting the veil to flirt. no one perfect, but perfection inserts us so, Pascal thinks a God in his pocket. what if paradise meant walking on the ground of our self estrangement, and the veil of our gaze an unsteady balm was not what we saw through but were,   twisting, untwisting— do you believe.            we were never strictly servants.