Like a flour smudge on an old blue apron,
A lunchtime moon thumbprints the sun-plowed,
Snow-scrabbled heavens of Harmony, Maine.
Last night three cops shot Danny McDowell
On South Road, down by the shack you and I rented
That hard winter when the northern lights glowed
And the washing machine froze and I got pregnant.
I built a five-inch snowboy for our half-inch embryo.
You took a picture of it cradled in my mittens.
But today, too late, too late, I see I forgot to worry
About this moon, this ominous rock waxing half-bitten
Over our clueless sentimental history.
Picture it falling. A white egg, neat and slow.
It doubles. Redoubles. Till all we see is shadow.
DAWN POTTER directs the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching, held each summer at Robert Frost’s home in Franconia, New Hampshire. Her most recent book is an anthology, A Poet’s Sourcebook: Writing about Poetry, from the Ancient World to the Present (Autumn House Press, 2013). She lives in Harmony, Maine.
