Can I be sick of this yet?
You remind me of my first dog
who ran away Christmas morning
into the field where we found the cow
bone and the lamp cord hanging on a tree.
*
You never told me how
New York City winters tend
to bleed. Lambswool and rye
whiskey aren’t common knowledge
I didn’t know to seek high noon.
—Joshua Massey
the risk of opening myself up frost flowers
—Shloka Shankar
rather a cold flat
your old cat, and the endless
stream of your insults
—Laila Woozeer
Osaka
Warm soda is something new to me
But there’s a proper chill in the air
Five years ago, we grabbed suitcases
No longer entertaining dreams of being here
I ask our Family Mart window reflections, “Who are these kids?”
—Ariane Lauren
we tried to interpret the mountain
but did not lift the cover of snow
home is underfoot
& growing
*
I have tried to revise
the birds’ leaving
but cannot reach
their latitudes
—Alex Tretbar
from Ten Runes in Verglas
The struggle is over, the struggle is won.
The ice sheet is melting off the roof;
A metronome ensues, a dripping:
The closest thing to music Today.
—John Lilac
When it’s the same in Fahrenheit and Celsius
I never imagined I’d hanker
for forty below
―my blue-sky winters
when an intake of breath
could burn your throat.
—Frances Boyle
birth
i made a baby all by myself
out of compressed mud and
snow and green needles it smells
like trees and earth and cold and if
i bring it inside it will die
—Rae Diamond
Thorney Island, Valentine’s Day
I surprised a pair of courting lapwings
a monochrome morse of flight,
all dark dots and white flashes.
They left their call a wave length away
the sound of a radio being tuned in
finding the frequency of each other.
—Morgan Melhuish
emptied
because you know how to empty, how to open, like snow blossoms unfurling in the losses between teeth.
—Carina Solis
in winter’s blackness Horsehead
even the weeds rest winter garden
against a white sky the bones of trees
red mountain flickering the evening alpenglow
—Norma Bradley
Lights and Geography
Alpine Diwalis and ice veins through silk buntings
The wick of the reindeer lamp softens to kohl
and, in the smoke of this foreign wood,
Amma’s Tamil calendar glows turmeric,
like a sun we had forgotten we packed.
—Suchi Govindarajan
This poem is short
Winter is so damn long.
—Andy Perrin
Self portrait as darkest day of the year
or a day when a broom can stand upright
in uncanny defiance of balance. Where
everything is supposed to get better from.
A sunset I watch still behind the counter
at work. At night I walk home in the dark.
*
Self portrait as light reflecting
off of the bedazzled cowboy hat
to the ether of the living room.
Specular refractions ghostlike
in the corner. Ungraspable fly
on the wall—an incident.
—Aoife Smith
roseghost
sink in these blue palms;; ?
my roseghost – (left me) sprinkled like
frozen berries on fresh snow (my blue palms are too blue)
,,,,,,, roseghost,
go home ..
—dre levant
baobab leaves
falling from the book of psalms
kwanzaa dawn
chicago sunrise
last night’s soot
on the piled-up snow
—Deborah A. Bennett
wipers wipers
a drenched pied wagtail
by a dustbin
—Jim Young
Midlife, mid-Chanukkah
It’s the fifth night and my very soul
is saturated—press my edge
and your finger is greased. I’m in need
of patting down with a paper towel,
the blotter bleeding gold.
—Ayelet Amittay
On Our Last Date in the City, I Asked About Lake-Effect Snow
Just a table between us,
I peel an orange while you tell me about your sister.
Remember? My body blushes because I said I know how this scene ends
& you objected! Your honor, god, whoever: I’ve recalled this dream before.
Each time you push your chair back & bruise me like a windchill.
—Shannon Hardwick
Waxing Crescent – Winter
The moon’s chip sliver a lodestone
laughing sly Cheshire grin
an axe head hanging over
I’ll shatter before the freeze lifts
fractal patterns, shadow stretching.
—Erika Gill
