Various Forms of Fog
after “Cloudless Snowfall” by Franz Wright
My mother lived her whole life as if there
was something more, unseen, untouchable,
an overlapping world or another place—a realm
of peace, of light. She was so focused on a nebulous
Nirvana, so eager to be somewhere else, that nothing,
no one here was fully seen. Yet this clouded vision
comforted her. If the world’s charms went unnoticed,
so did its sorrow. A long-term patient stopped
seeing me, said I had lost my faith in him when I
suggested hospice. He had no understanding
of what it meant, didn’t want to know. Reality isn’t
always, or even often, desired. Franz gave thanks
for God’s hidden face, hardly able to bear
the beauty of the world around him.
Published in The Louisville Review No. 97 Fall 2025
