Poetry by Charlene Stegman Moskal
She wrote of remembered afternoon skies
dark like tarnished silver,
sleet that dissolved on sidewalks
elusive, slippery as words in the mouths of liars.
Cold wormed its way under sleeves,
collars, through the spaces
between buttons on coats heavy
with the lightness of snowflakes.
Pristine white covered the ground as if to protect it
from the intrusion of tires and footsteps;
wires now unfit roosts for evening starlings
as clouds silently delivered the rest of their bounty.
By afternoon slush piled against curbs;
made men and women hop and leap
like children playing in a puddle,
but without the laughter and joy—
snow an annoyance,
something to be avoided,
something to get over and through,
its wonder short lived, shoveled into the past.
Her memories written in November,
reread months later as something forgotten
from those days before he left her
ice-grieved in the cold of December.
Charlene Stegman Moskal is published in numerous anthologies, print and online magazines including: TAB Journal, Calyx, and Humana Obscura. Her chapbooks are One Bare Foot (Zeitgeist Press), Leavings from My Table (Finishing Line Press), Woman Who Dyes Her Hair (Kelsay Books), and a full poetry collection, Running the Gamut from Zeitgeist Press.
