Banana Chain
Banana bunches
hanging down the length
of a frosted chain
outside a snow-swept market
curl with cozy ease
into each other,
as if still
on a tree somewhere tropical,
their yellowness
dawning from their green
snow
Trees
We walk up the hill
slowly
not sure how far deep
our feet will sink.
It is just December
and the day is bright
the pines and fir and spruce
are everywhere.
We raise our heads
from the new trail to see their heights
some look store bought
even though they have never been inside.
headlights
black patches curving slick
the moon
extraordinary in its bloom
lights last flecks of
webbed snow
two by two geese
flee into darkness
tracks melting under toe
I’ll meet you here, tomorrow
Jack says
as Seven Sister skate the sky
moon raining crystals.
The Mock Orange at Night in Mid-July
Out of flower now,
yet I smell it and so
must the dogs who
know where the cardinal
was at noon and the red squirrel.
Who knows which
trace is truest –
this one as if someone took
a torch to pearled sugar,
crust on custard,
almost too sweet.
We, or at least I, rely
certain in seeing.
The moon is a firefly
in the pine, a silver flash
above the greenish
flare of beetles.
What the Snow Covers
is the witnessing grass
pressed down by boot
in joy or fear and
cut by dangerous blades
and neighbor’s gazes.
What the snow uncovers
is the secret parade,
the pawed passage
of shivering midnight
moonlight scavengers.
What the snow covers
is its own white with
further white, soft light
made heavy after its
nomadic fall, the flakes
ache to settle, nestle, wait.
At my parents’ house on the one-month anniversary of my sister’s death, which is also the three-year anniversary of September 11th
it snows. Too early for snow but seasons change.
On the warm ground snow falls all day,
fat white splashes not quite like ashes, but
with a purpose, a quiet, eerie mismatch of
What for, why, how can this be.
There’s a hum. I can’t hear right.
This silence is deafening.
I hate snow.
A chainsaw sits near the door of my childhood home.
The door’s knob wore down and fell off.
The door forgot its name, is listening for it in the wind.
A pair of rubber work boots stand nearby.
They rub together, rattled by a cold breeze, a
synthetic scratch, scratch, daring me to enter.
Patricide At the Dog Howl Cartoon
Father, my heart freezes
stiff as those chickens
when that slaughter truck overturned
in the blizzard of ‘78
and as I walked through the empty
snow world I kicked them,
feathers all over the road.
There is mother
in smoke and shame
hiding her face how the dead
know to do. Father,
her dark eyes hair skin all
a howl of rain.
small hands
We were frozen stumbling and bumbling your hand on my thigh my leg on yours holding tight as we hurled down that hillside on a rustic red slide not knowing we would have this moment to savor for so many walks to come before full time work and grad school one, two, then three bundles of infinite intensity.
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Inappropriately Dressed I wasn’t dressed for snow, or clouds, or wind, or for walking at all, if I were being honest. But sometimes you just have to give it a go and trudge through the clouds, kick up the snow in passing, challenge the wind with the size of your hat. It wouldn’t dare to […]
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