excerpts from Pictures of the Weather

Check the mail. Maybe it was delivered 

in the middle of the night. I love mail 

and your face in the dark. Last week I opened 

a letter. It was dark, a letter written at night, 

and you could tell by how it started 

in the middle. The night is delivered to us 

nightly. We don’t have to ask for it. The mail 

by now delivered to your face, where 

there is also waiting. The middle, night.

---

The future. Is it a grave, or slush? You are

probably wondering this, too. In another, 

more specific room. And since we can 

no longer play with snowmen, how about

we shoot arrows in the lawn and mark 

their graves? I am wondering about 

the future, but it doesn’t feel that important 

right now. You are picturing a place, with

specific snow. I am asking you to play in it. 

---

I’m “sad.” I walk to the park. I get “high.”

I get high and I'm still sad waving at myself 

in the park. Floodlights take over the lawn. 

The lawn is now this pool of light that will 

electrocute me. My shadow and the light. 

The light taking off and landing. Taking off 

my sadness and getting high. Getting high 

and handing it back to myself. Sadness handed 

back in a little yellow bag. 

---

TIMOTHY MICHALIK is a Michigan born poet and an MFA candidate at NYU, where they teach undergraduates and edit poetry for Washington Square Review. The founding editor of the journal/press Copenhagen, they are the author of two chapbooks, Neopastoral (Pétroglyphes) and Moscow, Iowa (Umpteen Triangles).

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