the blackest imaginable white

there is no horizon.

nothing is crisp, everything the same shade of white.

you assume gravity is in check, that you’re standing upright.

from your mind’s eye, you conjure up turns you normally base

on split second analyses of angles and shapes.

a distant version of yourself, you feel you’ve been here before,

but all you truly know is where earth pushes up more.

in vain, questions eddy in this whitewash guise;

you might as well ski with eyes closed, you realize.

if not for the lone tree, a child’s scribble on the page,

speed and direction would be impossible to gauge.

but when a turn takes your gaze away from this pine,

and before you’ve found a new guiding sign,

your stomach falls into your throat; you turn upside down,

tumbling in an inner ear tempest, empty of sound.

and for a brief moment, the blackest imaginable white

beckons you to the edge of the world, in blinding light.

first published in Hartskill Review: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. Vol. 2, Issue 1. Ed. Joshua Hjalmer Lind. Eau Claire: ThrewLine Books, 2015. 4. Print.