SPRING CHILL

With the spring day
coursing cool

in the shade,
I turn a street corner

and, struck by sun,
feel

a recollection
start to formulate, not

as an image, or even
as an intangible

muscle memory, but
as from something stored in

bone, a skeleton
memory of my skeleton

childhood-small
and summer-warm,

a memory
radiating out

from marrow
to muscles

and veins
and skin

to return me—
for a full, brimming moment—

to a sweet, long lost
emptiness.

THE PROJECT

A steelworker
in an orange hard hat
calls down commands
from within a giant square of girders
soon to be unseen, girders
that reveal, for now,
the core geometry
of the building, one
rising like a sculpture
even its artist, once
his metalwork is done, will need
a key to enter.

Mark Belair’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Poetry East. His latest collection is Watching Ourselves (Unsolicited Press, 2017). Previous collections include Breathing Room, Night Watch, While We’re Waiting, and Walk With Me. Learn more about Mark at www.markbelair.com.