From The Cold

The Snow is Where My Son Is

All kinds of snow.
The snow of bare ground
perennial cold
of rejections
of an empty heart
of vacuum's textures
of the thinness of warmth
of air in an unheated blanket
hitting a tired body after a bitter day.
Carpet snow
Rough snow
Snow like a distraction
that inadvertently strums something warm on the guitar.
Choking-the-weeds snow.
Topography snow...mid border, divide like.
Inside-the-wounds snow.
Sometimes thin and crooked like a white fingernail
Sometimes thick, slapping six months out of sight.

When soft blue bell flowers bloom in spring
When sunflowers dance in a new breeze
The snow becomes false.
It becomes a distant spot, a dissolved wart.
As my boy cycles to school in the mad sunshine,
pedals by sword shaped ferns, mullein and
silky feather grass, carrying the sun on his back,
he forgets the rules to face the cold.
Forgets how difficult it is to
cry through snow-spiked lashes.
To think of home through a film of monochromatic white.

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