print previewback SIMONE MUENCH & DEAN RADER
[Shadow, you’ll travel to what waits ahead]
Shadow, you’ll travel to what waits ahead—
a house composed of snow, an empty bed.
If you linger before exposure
there will be marsh light, an open window,
a soft sound floating like a ghost above
the pond. Dear dark self,
this life is a glove
of matchsticks and sorrow. So, why do we
search so hard for that hand of gasoline?—
always craving the blue blaze that will erase
us. When all that’s left will be a sooted space,
a lover’s charcoal tracing, sunspot of loss
and levin. Keep moving, hungry one. With no
moon to guide you, the only way to cross
over is to slip on the black hood and go. 
Beginning with a line from Jorge Luis Borges’s “To the One Who Is Reading Me.”
Contributor’s notes: Simone Muench
Contributor’s notes: Dean Rader
[How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder]
[Near dusk, near a path, near a brook]
[Shadow, you’ll travel to what waits ahead]