| Give a Gift |    • Digital Edition  Invisible Bride by Tony
Tost  The following is a poem from Invisible Bride by Tony Tost,
published by Louisiana State University Press in April 2004.
Twelve Self Portaits   The snow is dark and nothing is sad and I
was, once upon a time, a child. I knew what the weather meant,
was hardened the way only a child, after all, is.  The first ten
years are full of rain. I watched the shadows flee away.  The
snow is something else, tonight, as I stand, grown, naked (I'm
in the living room, the lights are off): invisible and filling
up.   That's me, tongue placed firmly in the subconscious. A
slow undercurrent, a breath (twisting). Silent I suppose, and
sad.  It is my time (in this, my second self portrait, I am
unapologetically ill and in my early eighties) and I call to my
side my large circle of friendly landscapes and intimate
portraits and willingly take my leave of them. Also, the fringe
elements of me: the street performer and the recluse, the
terminally hip and the lost