Drawing Snow

By CURTIS BAUER

There is a bend to everything.

Edges melt into curves like winter

and then spring, snow sways from

white to gray, powder to crust

and too many dialects make noiseon these streets—slush and splash—

and inside the looking, a white

I can’t touch. No one can. Someone

who wants a myth proved needs

to trace wounds and feel every surface’s

cold skin. The glass of memory

is cold, but what is the sound

ice whispers? I play its recording

back on my tongue and it sings

wet trickle drips falling from the roof.

I play it on my ungloved hand

and it sounds so sweet I roll

up my sleeve, take off my shirt.

Unclothed in the thawing,

its noise falls loud, mutes my breath

in clouds. I am less body, depleted

profile, shoulder blade and leg. This

solid clears and sculpts me into a pile,

a mound of white in a sea of white.

Curtis Bauer is the author of three poetry collections: his first, Fence Line (2004), won the John Ciardi Poetry Prize; Spanish Sketchbook (2012) is a bilingual English/Spanish collection published in Spain; and The Real Cause for Your Absence will be released March 2013 by C&R Press. 

Photo from Flickr Creative Commons