Kelly Hoffer

Darkness is to weight as lightness is to lightness

if darkness is to lightness as weight is to lightness
a hallway is two windows connected by a tube
or two squares of light surrounded by heavy dark.
darkening weight. ink weaves into matter.
if darkness is absorption the light swallows into my
matter. if coldness is heat
leaving, everything around the darkness is cold. my
pain is alone. and the darkness
is heatful. and to be left out in the light
is the arrival of snow. a snow night would be
bright with crystal. my submission would be to be
light with edges. a body of heat builds
to its brightness. as brightness is lightness
reflected, the sheen, a surface slickened. ink opens
in water. shallow is little depth, undeepening.
shadow is unlightening. the shadow in shallow
is slight. a pleasure is a hurtness coming
and leaving at once. it is a heaving
window collected by a tube. the shallow
in shadow is light. coming through a stocking. silken heat. silky
plaything. my coming apart will be a ray unneat
in its depth. the sand moves if wave
is to particle as light is to light.

Sidelong: treatises

the moon is bigger, but I am pretty
sure we are, both, celestial objects, carved out of the dark by the sun.

snow keeps snowing, renewing itself. I wake in the morning
to find it fresh again, a pristine crystal. 

the thing about a cliff is the cliffside, otherwise
it would remain a carpet unfurling in front of you, forever.  

the voice becomes the trailing thing in the
forest, tree branches holding to a sound, and I am reminded 

last night I dreamt of balconies and expensive art and
my sister lying atop embroidered linens in a hotel room. 

with regard to the light from the sun, we each have a side,
which is to say we have two, a shadowed and a bright, the light follows  

the sloping surface hanging long down the
body, the world a robe, more glistening than I thought

it could be. I am a surface considered from a particular direction. what are you
good for. he sees me as a blue thing, through rose liquid, opens my duration, unfurling
forever 

the snow shudders and seizes. when the branches are overcome the
birds startle, breaking open their wings to make the winter flower. 

side, long, deep; spoken of a roof. heard of
my way of sleeping, sighing like I like. I drink into it. a marbled pool.