Special Selection for the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Issue
Poetry by Sarah Bruenning
There was snow in the forecast, for the last day of the year and the last day of our trip. We heard that the town wouldn’t know what to do with it – that snow was rare here, even in December. I worried that the stretched, sloped driveway would be impossible to get back down, and that the table you booked months before would sit empty. The day before, the winter sun convinced us otherwise as we climbed over the orange clay and brown desert rocks to get to the closest vortex that looked out over the valley. The day before, the sun was so warm that you had to take off your jacket halfway through our hike, and the daylight was so bright that it ruined the polaroid I tried to take up top. We ate at the pizza place in town for the second time and drove past the nice restaurant on the way back to note where it was. The day before, we dragged our thin blankets outside to sit and drink under the clear sky. The next day, we woke to the silent kind of snow already dusted over the desert rocks and the driveway and our two lawn chairs in the garden.
Sarah Bruenning recently graduated with an MFA from the University of Missouri in St. Louis. Her poetry has been published in Glassworks, River & South Review, and Stonecrop Magazine. She also works as a reader for Boulevard.
