Weeks, not months. We can’t be sure.
You’re fifteen. Just learning winter.
Drive reverse. Early March
after a late blizzard and it’s deep
as January. Still untracked. Rightly
left to children making snowmen.
Drive he repeats. Reverse.
You shift and shift and shift.
Drive reverse. Tires spin.
Again.
It comes back, driving
to the nursing home, but feels wrong.
This December is warm as April.
Streets are clear and you’re certain
shadow-tattered, mirror-bright patches
on the parking lot are lamplight.
Not winter packed hard and smooth
enough to take you into spring.
No more Be careful you’ll slip.
You wanted this time to be straight-
forward, going with him
to the garage, stretching again
into his footprints.
He’ll feel better get worse.
Be more confused more alert.
Eat, drink some stop for good.
Without snow what way?
When the time comes you’ll know.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 6.
Michael Barrett grew up in Montana, studied literature, philosophy, and law at Harvard, and currently lives in Seattle. His poems have appeared in Plainsongs, Post Road Magazine (Pushcart nominee), Atlanta Review, Passager (honorary mention, 2020 Poetry Contest), Avalon Literary Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, and Gray’s Sporting Journal.
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