baby, with this sun shining & snow falling, it could be winter all year long

i’m gonna step outside barefoot & scream

from the thrill of it. gonna walk

all the way across this frozen lake,

find what’s on the other side.

not really

because frostbite.

but here in this poem i can make anything

true if i want it bad enough.

two mornings in a row now

i’ve seen the biggest black dog

bouncing around in the snow.

o, to be so free!

owner doesn’t even use a leash, just stays

so close to this bounding ball of fur.

every half hour i scooch my plants a little further

down the windowsill so they soak up

as much light as they can.

how good would i have to be for you

to give me that kind of attention?

i don’t mean anything by that, i just wanna know.

i’ll keep trying til my tongue gets twisted to figure out

how to say what i’m trying to say to you.

i meant til my tongue gets untwisted.

you see what i mean?

maybe not, your sight so often is so far off. i’m here

at home & you’re looking twenty years

down the line. we’re on the same page

of two different books.

the ice is melting from the gutters

as new snow falls on the balcony. i feel like that

shouldn’t be possible but i don’t remember

learning about temperatures in school. like, i’m sure we did

but i don’t remember anything

except wishing they still used mercury

because it seemed so fun & cool & gelatinous.

like whatever they put in thermometers now

looks so boring. gimme back

the danger!

anyway that’s probably why i don’t remember—

too focused on all the wrong things.

the snow keeps stopping & starting &

if i didn’t know any better

i’d say we were in a snowglobe

some little kid upending it every few minutes

waiting for it to settle before shaking again.

i wonder if we’re in the kind that has music

& if we are, what’s playing

maybe something from swan lake, dance of the little swans

or the last quarter of vivaldi’s winter.

it’s all good until it isn’t

& then we stretch it out til it’s good again.

it all comes back around if you wait long enough,

i’m just so damn impatient.

there, the sun disappeared so i can stop thinking

about my plants. think instead about

the yoga mat tucked away in my closet.

because of the stretching, i mean.

i’m not gonna use it, but i’ll always know it’s there.

there’s a frenzy of snow

going on right in front of my eyes & you’re stuck

in someone else’s

basement somewhere. tell me,

did they at least give you an egress? are you having fun

spraying your black paint across their walls? i hope

it’s the kind that turns into a chalkboard

but i’m sure it isn’t.

surprise me, i dare you—

i’d cover that whole ceiling with hearts for you, if you’d let me.

smileys, too, a great big chalky mess.

swipe my fingers across your cheeks, pretty white dust stripes.

why do football players do that, anyway?

with the black tar stuff i mean—

do they really, or is it just in movies?

i feel like you’d know, but maybe not.

the snow’s really picking up now & i want to drag you out in it,

watch a single snowflake fall on the tip of your nose & kiss it,

feel it melt in a fraction of a second against my lips.

you’d have to bend down for me to reach,

but this is all imagination anyway, reactions count

for zilch. sometimes getting through the day

without you feels like racing to unwind thread.

it gets all knotted & useless but you still gotta use it.

or i guess not, i don’t know how to sew anyway.

but the day i mean, still gotta get through it.

use it. make some kinda sense of it.

i wonder if this snow’s gonna build into a storm.

sure starting to seem like it. what do you say

we get snowed in, forget work,

think up some fun ways to stay warm

for a while