Late winter

Someday little baby,

this ice is going to melt

this long winter end

revealing 

cigarette butts and bottles

and salty sandgrit

and mummified Saturday night vomit

from January 3, when she got so hotly drunk

that she swam like a spawning salmon up the cool relief of frostbite in the parking lot.

 

and broken pavement,

and potholes.

 

In the spring everything will be better

little baby, little doll

and you'll come with me

over prickly stubble

as the water rises

as the banks roil over

and the streets break into Braille for the engineers to translate.

And the livestock will parade by, 

in from the country, facedown and bloating in their tressle collections

where the flies celebrate spring like sawmill wire flowers.

 

So won't you come with me, baby, 

across these frozen fields of memory 

where spring is always sweeter

in the box where you stored it.

 

March 11, 2010

Cedar Rapids, Iowa