by Afric McGlinchey

The old philosopher is sharp as ice in winter,

fracturing all the wicked weights,

the resonance of his voice, lacerating

so-called safe spaces,

until they are ripped and sewn again,

upright as trees.

His words are gateways to the sublime,

conflating human agency

with the natural order, the body

of shared memory with the vanished sign.

There should be flowers, he tells us

in a clear-cut voice, simple as ink.

Every night, his teachings turn to the blue

laws, or stallions

or the book of hours. Come dawn,

he reaches the double zero

in a landscape of confession – luminous

and ferocious, divine and apocalyptic,

inviting invocation and resistance

to those overpouring

toward war – that avenue

lined with little lamps of snow.