Scraping the Windshield

I’d better leave these northeast winters before my sullen brooding turns to a measure of joy, as I grow content that the edges of the road are caulked with mud, frozen slush, listening to the clatter of another semi’s jake-brake as it breaks open the shell of another midnight highway whose sound could easily be mistaken for the ocean in the morning, another eighteen-wheeler coming down the salt-bleached pavement into our little town, probably hauling something that I will purchase tomorrow from one of the local stores: a bag of cat food, a new pair of socks, an avocado.

I’d better leave these winters before I begin to love them, my back breaking beautifully as I shovel the driveway and wrestle with the trash barrel, the woods across the narrow gorge glowing in a cold compress of sunlight, straining to push through snow-clouds as if it wishes to open the way for an angel or two who have checked their schedules and found the need to descend into this world, do a job, maybe get a cup of coffee.