Poor Snow
Poor Snow
Trying to fall asleep is about as easy
As trying to fall in love. In lieu of sheep
I think of the sheep-colored snow
That effortlessly covers thousands
Of acres around me. It must know
Its days are numbered. I imagine it
Trying to remember the tracks of animals
Even as its mind is melting away.
Poor snow! Great piss-pocked mother,
Still pure in places despite her fallenness,
Still flaunting sensuous troughs and drifts
Like a widow trying her wiles at the dive bar,
Aided by beer and pity. Unless winter
Hardens its heart, she’ll soon disappear,
Along with the fastidious notes she kept
About who passed where, but not before
Suffering the final indignity of being
Forced to live out her last days
In the ghettos of the shadows.