I like this poem for itself, of course, but I also love how it sparks my imagination. Wier's poem doesn't give us much to work with. There's a speaker, a mysterious "you," some peculiar imagery, and seven beautifully draped sentences that flow sinuously from line to line before quietly coming to their end-stopped rests. ("End-stopped" refers to a line that ends in a period or some other pause-inducing punctuation.) The phrases are lyrical, slow, and pull you through the poem before you can even wrestle with its meaning.
It's not even clear whether the "you" is a spirit or a lover or something else, but based on the title, I like to think that the "you" refers to a lover, perhaps a lover in ghost form. But this isn't even the most confusing part of the poem. Phrases like "By morning by cresting by curving by blazing" and the fragment "Exchanging places in ground fog with black flares" seem disconnected from the rest of the poem. Logically and grammatically, these phrases are confounding and as lonesome as buoys far out at sea. But in terms of mood and associative meaning, these lines fit perfectly with the rest of the poem.
Who knows what precisely is going on here, and, more importantly, who cares? The fragments of language and the unnamed "you" only add to the ghostliness of the poem, to the sense that the "you" is experienced outside of logic and outside of the physical world. From the curtain imagery that appears in the last two lines, I get the impression that the speaker stands close enough to the space between life and death that she (or he) sees more than the rest of us see, perhaps some strange spiritual world layered over our own.
Like I said, I like how my imagination plays with this poem just as much as I like the poem's language and eddying flow. I hope you enjoy it too.
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You come as close as the skin on my face,
As if you were a sure enough wind for me to walk into.
In woodgrain on a doorframe of a door I walk out of
You wander and I wander with you.
With luciferin, luciferase and oxygen you light the way.
A mid-summer's late evening scatters you so
That by midnight all of the stars that surround us
By morning by cresting by curving by blazing,
You are light that has passed through my eyes.
I see you in profile as if sharpened and stenciled
Examining creases in the palm of my hand.
Exchanging places in ground fog with black flares.
What is this translucence you've dropped between us,
When will a sure enough wind arrive to blow this curtain aside?
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