Chris Crittenden

Long Term Snow

no fleeing this drifter
dogged as barnacles,
stark as lichen on bones,
callused and clumped.

we simply endure
the landscape-wide nevus,
a discoloration to Earth,
leprous for the rest of us—

who must flounder
in its tasteless cakes,
sinking through layers
to the hidden frost—

we eat our way out
and still freeze,
victims of plenteous ice,
champions of numbness.

it attacks goldenrods
as if they were vocal chords.
it dismays time, seizing
pendulums of pokeweed—

holding them in stasis
or cracking them off,
like skeleton keys
that unlock nothing
save their own descent—

we all suffer that wintry fate,
buried without wanting to know,
encased by the coffin outside.