I

Come:
I will follow you, I said, to a place where night is a season, where the horizon
is as fine as, beneath a lover’s hand, lacing on a chemise. I will follow you
to a city sewn by river, where we’ll stand on a canal, your hands
warming in my coat, horizon open, our faces in a constellation
of snow and stars. I will follow you to where there is
no parting, to a city sewn by river, horizon spilling
snow, spilling stars, your hands warming
in my coat, near a river, for a season,
for an hour.

Come,
you said,

Come

                  ‘Come’, Thin Moon Psalm (Brick Books, 2007)

horizon open, our faces in a constellation
of snow and stars.

In St Petersburg night and day are seasons. Winter is dark and when watching the Neva from the embankment, streaks of snow, stars and lamp-light are indistinguishable. Burrowed deep into winter, I traded with a friend for The Inferno of Dante. I picked my way to the sixth circle where the class of captive souls is the heretics. Arranged in sepulchres outside the city of Dis are the ‘Epicureans’, heretics who believe that the soul dies with the body. Nicole Pinsky writes that the drama of Canto X is based on the irony that the pilgrim is not aware that the damned cannot ...