By Julia Salem
In a bleary part of town,
I traverse the blackboard silence of snow.
Through the slats of the cypresses
Flounce paper-white feathers of snow.
On the red leaves of my palms
Distend melted messages of snow.
The road is iron anvil
Stinging with sparks of snow.
My nocturnal heart thrums
In white wasp whir of snow.
Moonlight purls like nectar
Sweetening the blandness of snow.
Glaucous berries hang from the rowans
Like frostbitten pearls of snow.
Mice hide in the lee of alders,
Shirking the cold tusks of snow.
Shadows vine like crewelwork
On linen twill of snow.
Around your black spade pupil
Lurks an avalanche of snow.
I wish you’d toss your cards
Like fireworks against cumuli of snow.
Instead, my name catches in your throat,
Congealed in its amnion of snow.
Source: Poetry (November 2019)
Poet Bio
More Poems about Nature
Listening in Deep Space
We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.
We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers...
At the Equinox
The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars.
I have no theory of radiance,
but after rain evaporates
off pine needles, the needles glisten.
In the courtyard, we spot the rising shell of a moon,
and,...
More Poems about Relationships
Meanwhile
Water of the womb
It is winter in Anchorage, and I am only as tall as the shoveled snowbanks in the parking lot of the pink apartments. I am old enough to have chores but young enough not to fully understand frostbite. It is...