J. Sackett, Jr.
Intimating Snow

Winter creeps its icy underbelly, staggering
legs, crooking arms, extending the air’s crisp

bite, scarring the afternoon with a memorable
wound. Sky’s white shards fragment, puzzle

purity’s glass pane portrait. The cold noise
shatters. Trees bend in obedience to this seasonal

burden; servants to demands of a tyrant wind.
Some snap in jagged edges, severing their root

strangle. And men scuttle, crunching the snow
beneath abundant layers and wobbling boots.

Women watch crystal daggers descend from
branches; the children blow warm air between
fingers, night collapses from thoughtless clouds.

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