AVALANCHE
By Michael Blumenthal
after the film Force Majeure
If an avalanche should come
and we find ourselves sitting on the balcony
of some European resort, don’t worry:
I promise not to grab my ski gloves
and cell phone and leave you there
I won’t leave you in the hands
of fate, I won’t rush, coward
though I am, to save my own skin
instead of yours. I will be there
taking the rush of snow into my body
before it reaches yours, unafraid
of the torrents life can bring
knowing, at last, what it can take away,
how white and colorless this world
would be without you in it, how worthless
my gloves, my phone, my very life.
for Isabelle
Copyright © 2015 by Michael Blumenthal.