What if there were another nor’easter like in ’78
when twenty-eight inches clogged the streets, and what
if a second arrived on its heels, budgets were slashed
and so too the plow fleets, warm-colored liquid raised
in a warm window passed on the street, toasting
the New Year’s lean new budget, and this,
this is why I don’t live farther north, the roads thinner,
colder the capillaries quicker to collapse in my fingertips,
toes blue as a storm-shook sky, one jackknifed
tractor trailer on the highway’s a clot and the tissue
downvein dies, arthritic bridges handed down
piled up with snow, stuck inside and O
shit my prescription, my mortgage bill, it’s only
January, downed power lines unreachable,
unplugged, and what, even with power, what
about cabin fever, nights when the stars
crowd every window and mock us like giddy,
spare snowflakes, twinkling down in their arbitrary
constellations on all these parts contiguous,
more joint than solid bone, what happens when
we refuse the leave of our bodies, unable to extricate
ourselves, unable to welcome a clearness that could
settle on us, security as wind, as a solitary sound,
the earth’s whispered hush, hush, sleep now,
hush, I’ve got you, you needn’t grip so tight.