Inverted white air white-blue snow con-
gealed on concrete the sense of swimming under
an ice sheet at 6,000 feet
& where have those distinct moments
gone to in space &
frozen fog & frozen wrought iron
gestures
& black & white freight trains
on the plaza’s historical markers
those distinct snowdome moments
a store window window-shopping
a scarlet cowboy shirt a wooden cross
pinned with a tin star en-
circled with rusted barbed wire
this is what I wanted to say when the sun came up
once upon a time when time was liquid &
chromatic in
every direction
the canteloupe glow over I-79 in a June driving
east by northeast but it’s this
March in Cheyenne in gray-white air
a row of skateboards & a Dark Side of the Moon
t shirt & my reflection
in plate glass framed by bricks in-
verted white air white-blue snow con-
gealed on concrete
have I gone into time in a paradox a
wooden cross pinned with a tin star
the Union Pacific depot
graystone in frozen fog a galloping
horse statue hulking oxidized geometric
& no yellow freight trains in sight
Jack Hayes
© 2010
[To see other poems in this sequence, please click on the "UP Poems" label]