Nieve

Upon a snowy road,

It strikes me –

In my old, brown, bent, beat up car

It strikes me –

Arctic water balloon,

It strikes me

That:

I may not make it home.

-

The drifts are piling faster than I planned;

Fat flakes are falling down just like the clods

That cover coffins; and

As all my wheels begin to spin, and as

My headlights lose themselves in whiteness…

Well, it strikes me.

-

I caught your eye at dinner with my folks,

Potato lifted halfway to your mouth,

And smiled – for

Essential grace was present in your neck

In arching, reaching for that spud;

And I became so furiously warm

To think

Of what I dared myself propose

To you – to all that was or could be you –

With my quite small circumference of gold.

-

I asked you once if someone else

Had told you – or perhaps I was the first

To mention, that

Your eyes were like the Amazon.

They easily could drown a careless soul.

-

Today, I’m drowning differently, today.

The white is all around me now,

All heavy as an ocean.

Only sounds:

My heart,

The engine, and

The whisper of the wipers on the glass.

I cannot look away from them,

Those pendulums, crazed dancers, they

Who in the face of all I contemplate

Keep striking, blindly striking,

Whirring, whining, hissing, striking

At the snow.