snow

I've wandered into a cul de sac, 1950s, father

Home for breakfast in his immaculate, milkman suit. My

Twin is asleep in the basement, in the moist dark where our

 

Furnace consumes its ration of propane then powers down.

The others will not awaken for years, not until future

Reunions when my father delivers his unpasteurized cream,

 

My mother fresh eggs. I sit at the formica table and erase

The world, the real one I've been dreaming minutes ago. And

I listen to my parents, the soft Oleo of my mother's voice,

 

The black Sanka of my father's. Flakes of sky drift beyond

The window, neither falling nor rising, just drifting, without

Purpose, unlike the willow beside the garage which gathers in

 

The white, reconstituted ocean. The dairy stepvan in the alley

With bottles and cartons waiting under blankets of crushed ice

Holds up its windows for more frosting. The snow will go on

 

For months, laying down its law of excess, creating fields and

Lakes where none exist, perpetuating itself from the air

Where it feasts, where cold is as pure and transforming as fire,

 

And in its blind snuggery deep down, the small pilot

Light of imagination continues to flicker, also waiting for

The sky to clear, the temperature to drop, the switch to click on.

 

--M deO

 

Done