by Slayton Avery

Here’s the thing—
(About that full moon?)
a quiet one, honeyed
humming soft because of the snow
(now there’s the problem— snow!)
Not because of how it muffled the moonlight
(because remember
moonlight did not gurgle through the tree branches
didn’t babble like a brook rolling over dissonant rocks
as it might on a clear night
its light didn’t crackle and jingle as it would on a cold night)
Not to change the subject
not to harp on the problem of snow,
but it’d be good to have the language of the Inuit
to possess a toolkit of nouns
to apply to the different defining snows;
snow-nouns providing context
imparting specifics
instead of flailing with adjectives inadequate
to the task of describing that veiled Wolf Moon that withheld its howl
but suffused flake sodden clouds
with intoned cantillations
and drawled soft copper notes
endlessly echoed by the silent ringing snow.

by Nancy Gordon

Our lives are now a failing masquerade.
I’ve tired of our posturing for show.
We’ve lied too much, in making this charade.
I’m leaving, thought I’d better let you know.
We’ve done our best to keep things looking right.
You’d hug me when we partied, take my hand.
That we could barely manage not to fight
our friends most likely failed to understand.
So, let’s just call this awkward aging game
before the next round devastates us both.
Hang on—no blaming here, it’s just a shame
that neither you nor I could keep our faith.
And yet—are we too close to pull apart?
Confession here—I hold you in my heart.

by CD Williams

First of March—
no real dawn, just a slow inevitable slide toward an empty daybreak.

Me—
            at the kitchen window looking for morning’s first birds
            a bit adrift and waiting—
            waiting, I suppose, for Light.
Waiting—
              when small boot prints in the snow across the yard catch my eye.
              Was it only last weekend?
              Standing at this same window—
              watching him joyful in the snow.
See—
              there’s where he ran, and fell—laughing without a jacket
              and his dad’s foot prints coming up to him
              —but no, he didn’t want any help.
              Back up on his own, running again through the snow.
              Still laughing
He’s gone now.
But he was here—see?

by Mathew Dickerson