The first one this year
by Marge Piercy
Snow sneaks in at night
while unsuspecting we sleep.
We wake to a different world
white as tissue paper.
Pretty, we say before we
have to shovel the long
drive down the hill. We
grab handfuls of it.
They collapse to ice
balls in our gloves.
Like nothing at all
flakes melt on our sleeves
but in the shovel, how
heavy. The stuff of aching
backs and smelly oint-
ment. Where did the garden
go? A field of moon.
Each bough is silk lined.
Like small moths
flakes alight in my hair.
Copyright © 2013 by Marge Piercy.
|