Let me read it to you.

 

Frigid

Copyright 2012 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

 

 

At a quarter to nine in the morning, it’s seventeen below.

Waiting for a ride, I stand inside the kitchen door,

rubbing frosted glass with gloved hand.

Her car pulls into the driveway,

its tires crunching on frozen snow.

 

“I don’t have the heat on yet,”

she says when I get in.

“It needs to warm up first.”

I don’t complain–

walking would be a lot worse.

In the YMCA locker room, my nose runs.

 

In the water exercise class,

“North to Alaska” plays on the stereo.

Why would I want to go there? I’m cold enough.

As the water’s warmth surrounds me,

I move across the pool–

my mind unfreezes, opens.

 

Driving home isn’t so bad.

The car has absorbed the winter sun’s warmth.

When I get home, the temperature is four degrees above.

 

Back Story

 

I originally wrote this poem, inspired by Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” which you can read here. My poem was originally called “Five Ways of Looking at Cold,” and like the other, it was divided into sections. It was first published in Emerging Voices in 2012. You can read it here.

For The Weekly Avocet, I revised the poem in order to keep it within the line limit. It now appears in the January 5^th issue, which you can download here. Thank you for reading.

 

 

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description

by Two Pentacles Publishing

 

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