Muted Tones by Nicholas Viglietti

--contra Thomas Hardy’s “Neutral Tones”

Muted tones, round your 

riddling lips in mid-winter.

No snow—just cold—dyed

in God’s grays and browns.

Sky-touched blues, painted

over frozen ground.

You eye me over, lids luring, 

as geese v in the haze

over shadows of crows—

smears of vigorous black,

the white sun catching

their pulsing wings.

Ash trees—stone-naked—

stripped, clear to their nodes.

Wind pursuing dead leaves

through life-sucked green

in the yard. Your mouth, above

all, the liveliest thing. 

Since then, keen lessons in bodies

electric—yours, always—shared 

with me that day in mid-winter 

we milked the heat of the world 

for our pleasure and froze

the birds in the sky.

Nicholas Viglietti is a writer from Sacramento, CA. After Katrina ravaged the gulf coast, he rebuilt homes there for 2 years. Up in Mon-tucky, he cut trails in the wilderness. He pedaled from Sac-town to S.D. He’s a seventh-life party-hack, attempting to rip chill lines in the madness