April Showers

Something is falling. It isn't
rain. It can't be snow.
I saw three specks just large enough
to get me off the couch. Something is falling.
The cat tilts one ear at the window.
I press my cheek to the glass.
There is nothing, no promise
from the outside, only my breath
and her purr and the hint
of day retreating.




photograph by Vicki Ashton

Shouted from the Office Window

I see the snow
melting, Spring, don't pretend
you're not out there.





photograph by flickr user Todd (cedarkayak)

Two Steps

Two steps led
in a fast-erasing path
from the snowy car parked
in front of mine.

The night quiet fell
in soft molecules
as I tried to guess (
with creaking boots
) where the other shoes
had gone.



photograph by flickr user khazeth

Catching Up with An Ex Over Coffee

Tell me, he says, about one time
you've been drunk. He doesn't say,
I dare you. He doesn't say, don't lie.
He doesn't say, how much do you think
you've really changed? I set my jaw
against the blows. In Brooklyn, once,
I say. My TA's apartment.
Across the too-small table I know
the gears are turning.
I don't say, After you, of course.
I say that it was February. Post-
theatre, back through the carving night
to his cold rooms. I say he showed me
cyanotypes, the skeletons of flowers,
pictures from Poland I'd already seen.
I say he brought out pepper vodka, that
his lanky frame had got a taste for it, but I,
tiny I, sputtered as his roommate laughed.
I tell how the dim bathroom
was slanted when I got there, how
the cold water sizzled on my flushed cheeks.
I do not say, I would have slept on the floor
but he did not have blankets enough. I do not say,
The next morning he talked to me
like a stranger. I say
he left me in Central Park,
an angel in the snow, beneath the 6am silence
of Jeanne-Claude and Christo's spectacle.
I say it was just breathtaking.



pinhole photograph by Tom Karlo

Melodramatic Moon

(Library Parking Lot, January Fifteenth)

"You're how full?" I asked.
"Half," she said, "Half, I am half-
full." She turned away.
Snowflakes blew toward her face and,
reaching her cheek,
disappeared against the expanse of white.

Feast Day

Feast Day
Today, so many years ago.
I awoke in his mind. I told him,
That hill. There. I said there would be flowers
and he found piles
of Spanish roses on the snow.
I said, show the Bishop. He turned out his apron,
and the world saw what was to come.

They say now I am a symbol, no woman at all.
They say the old goddesses hide beneath my gown,
they say you can see the stars in my girdle.
They say you can see children in my eyes.
They made me a flag and I led them through blood,
and they bombed my home with flowers.

Today I am blue-green, standing on the blackest moon.
Today I smile in my sleep,
and the war goes on in the night.



"One may no longer consider himself a Christian, but you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe." -Carlos Fuentes

"The Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery." -Octavio Paz

The Holiday Spirit

Every year she forgot; every year she looked forward
to decorating the cookies, the tree, the windows.
She imagined gingerbread men with pink bow ties,
a porcelain creche softly lit by colored lights,
popcorn and cranberries in neat, full strands.
This year the tree went up. She stood around, waiting for someone
to fill her hands with glass ornaments,
cranberries hard from the refrigerator, a bowl of frosting.
This year as the day went dark the family dispersed,
and she lay on the couch watching White Christmas alone.
As a gray sleep overtook her
she wished for new snow.

December 2

She woke in the silence, knowing the sound of snow.
Outside the kitchen window a stag, new antlers,
stood on hind legs to reach the frozen berries of the tree near the road.
She washed the coffee pot, her eyes locked on his hooves,
the trail of tiny prints he left on the lawn.

Her heard her watching and turned from the tree,
caught her dead in the eye through the glass and the snow.