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
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