“Who is the third who walks always beside you?”– TS Eliot, "What the Thunder Said"
A man in gray overalls
steps out of the gray matter of the horizon.
Snow whirs above the stalks
like angels of locusts
Discerning his face
is like trying to make substance
of atoms that won’t adhere—
these flakes,
one of which, wafer-like
lights at your parted lips
like a hint of a name
partially quenching
the dry question of identity.
You freeze,
almost remembering;
something about another season,
person, and place.
— 1977