A cold most lethal, the pine
if looked at long enough. My ice vision,
crown of deer inside, beheld, coats smoldering,
and one valiant cardinal above
stringing invisibles. When it becomes
unbearable, I’ll describe this in the colors of
a children’s book. Winters with Annie
playing orphans in the woods: foraging, peeling
hours in all those blades beneath a bitter
lemon sun, made sweet by not being alone.
Enter, snow. One dissociation sifts over
another, with decades between, hooves retreating
into the past, whatever that is, the cold
accumulating all its meanings.
Paula Bohince is a poet based in Pennsylvania. Her most recent collection is “Swallows and Waves” (Sarabande)
[See also: “Designer at the Cafe“: a new poem from Paula Bohince]
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This article appears in the 19 Jan 2022 issue of the New Statesman, The end of the party