The Greed Of White
They sing of the blanket of snow.
(A blanket, after all, is meant to smother.)
They toast to the pristine white, the slate wiped clean,
the hushed and holy silence of the frost.
But white is not clean; it is merely greedy.
It eats the sharp edges of the driveway,
it swallows the wrought-iron fence,
it erases the stray cat’s frantic footprints.
The neighborhood applauds the theft
and calls it peace.
Give me the bruised purple of a frozen plum.
Give me the ugly, skeletal reach of the oak
refusing to drop its last dead leaf.
They say the red holly berry is a mark of festive cheer,
a quaint little ornament for the mantle.
I say it is a puncture wound in the canvas.
It is the earth bleeding through the bandage,
gasping,
I am still here under all this quiet.
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