Snow

Katherine Cottle

 

Downstairs,

you shiver with the flu

I passed along

a week ago.

 

Upstairs,

I find an empty journal,

a blank book

given as a writing present

over ten years ago.

 

Outside,

snow falls in a fringe

of sharp white,

one degree past the border

of ice, a tiptoe

over the line of safety.

 

Inside, the house burns

with sickness and dry heat.

The animals raise their heads,

only to lower them

a second later.

 

The wind picks up,

blowing the tight beads

into a frenzy of lost diagonals.

I look out of the window

at the blue ground,

so cold that I can taste it.

I imagine lying face down,

my tongue melting through

the crisp layers,

granules sliding their way down

my throat like clear gems.

 

Out there, in the cold,

no sickness, no past,

no need for writing.

Just the fall, and natural,

inevitable stop

as the ground soaks,

the air drinks,

and the world closes its doors.

 

 


Katherine Cottle holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of Maryland.  Her work has appeared in River Oak Review, Blue Mesa Review,

Willow Springs, Puerto del Sol, The Greensboro Review, Tar River Poetry, The Cimarron Review and Poetry East.  Her chapbook, My Father’s Speech, was published by Apprentice House Publishers in 2007.  Katherine is a creative writing  instructor through Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth distance education program.

 

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