Jenn Blair

Frost

caking the car windows this morning,
while obligated early risers stand in
their gently sloping driveways, scraping,
some in smooth sideways strokes, others
with a frenzied up and down. The trees
look cold in their sockets. A few give
pecans to the street which we crush
hurrying to our offices and appointments.
Our children will wonder about ‘spectacles’
and ‘yellow’ in The Great Gatsby. Some of
us will order a salad for lunch, in a pitiful
attempt to bless our mysterious insides.
We won’t be back til dark. We won’t know
about the vigil hours the pruned magnolia
bushes keep. Maybe we should let it go.
That old aching, persistent feeling
that we still have not done enough, that
there must be a grander justification
for our bent mailboxes and sagging
gardens full of uprooted tomato stalks—
reduced-price almost orphaned plants
that mysteriously didn’t buck up and
thrive despite the fact we chose them
failing to feed our neighbors or ourselves.
What is writ in water sometimes slides
off, sometimes stays. I wouldn’t ever say
one could predict it. That’s not our job
anyway. All you can do is cast your bread.
All you can do is remain hungry.

 

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