They stand square-shouldered, thick coated,
boot treads leaking dirty snow on the linoleum floor.
Storm after storm covers roads, driveways — more
than I ever thought possible. One day
drifts into the next, white on white. Customers
jostle each other in line, arms thick with bacon,
milk, wine, all the last minute items needed
before we are caked in again. Back home,
my feet sink into the unpacked snow, entering
the house each frozen step beneath me groans.
The flakes are fat this time, wheels of frost
that twist past my window. They fall
unheeded on the stream, a bed of ice
except where the water falls over stones
from the old dam, breaking free in one cold
moment, a flash of blue against all the white.
title taken from the poem High Water by Jane Kenyon
Published in:
Off the Coast, Summer 2015