Max Heinegg

LINES AT CENTER FALLS

The way water abrades 
the pane of itself 
to leave the ice behind

like a snake, scraping 
the rasp of a fallen branch
to unflesh from its dead 

coil. For now, the clock tower pins 
the hour on the hill above. 
Time is the skin we all must slip− 

from youth, I fevered free.
Older, I would keep within
the scales that clutch the body.

Max Heinegg’s poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize. He has been a finalist for poetry prizes at Crab Creek Review, December Magazine, Cultural Weekly, Cutthroat, Rougarou, Asheville Poetry Review, the Nazim Hikmet prize, and Twyckenham Notes. Recent work appears in Thrush, Nimrod, The Cortland Review, and Love's Executive Order.