QuickTurtle Books®

  Painting by Richard Rensberry

Without warmth,
the sun is piercing bright.
My eyes burn, water and blur
blind and shut. They seek
the darkness and comfort
of earth beneath snow
as white and deep as January. 

This is how it feels
to be buried alive like a blade of grass,
smothered and choked like asparagus
too long in the freezer. These are the shivers
of a naked rose
at forty below gone nuclear.

The wolfish wind
is more guilty than innocent
when it howls into town
nipping like frostbite. The ears have to bear
their own screams, and the toes go
deaf and dumb as the feet that stumble
to get over themselves.

You cannot fathom
the frigid squirrel of black tires
on a worried bicycle. Our nation
shouldn’t be this miserable. People
shouldn’t be so cold.

Copyright 2015, Richard Rensberry, Author at QuickTurtle Books®