NO MORE WINTER BLUES

Why do they call it
          “Winter Blues?”

From my window I see no blue

The sky is the sullen gray
of decrepit drywall

The lawn wears the brown cast
of oxidized flesh

Trees, their limbs twisted and exposed,
look like emaciated monsters,
their hides blackened and scarred

From this moment forward
let the season be called
          “Winter pale”

For like an embalmed corpse
          its color has been drained
          and it awaits burial

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                                                   BELOW THE LINE

I wish
          I had been born and raised in the deep south

Far below the Mason Dixon Line
          instead of being planted in the upper Midwest
          like a primordial glacier
          all rock solid
          and lethargic,
          lake winds coiled around my spine
          January whiteouts blinding
          like cataracts

And as I push
          a snowblower through a drift,
          somebody somewhere
          is slick with sunblock,
          and dripping with Gulf waters,
          grateful they weren’t born
          north of the Mason Dixon Line