Boy, I remember when February here
was like Buffalo, NY in a blizzard:
a whiteout, a washout, a complete timeout
from the world.
Headlines read: Snowy streets like flooded rivers signal no crossing over today
We’d all lose our senses
of time, place, self
and those who ventured out
got lost like birds in a sandstorm
falling into deep crevasses,
fluttering their snow-angel wings tirelessly
while their lungs filled with the gritty cold.
As days passed with frozen pipes
and clogged-up drains, slowly
the white began to fester golden brown
as if the sky had puked out puppies and rainbows
turning front lawns into fruitcakes.
It was a grand old time we had
back then in our winter solitude,
passing the endless hours with
hot cocoa and puzzles;
our existence was as gorgeously bland
as white meat in 1950s suburbia.
As advertised, it was an undisturbed time
where the kids tried digging to the pearly gates
while their parents puffed bok choy and asparagus,
swallowing red by the bottle
which the babies nursed from their mothers.
Each day we vacationed like summertime
baked by the firesides
heated by wood stoves
sending pyres of smoke into the air
blanketing our homes in a veil of black and white.
February here used to be a paradise:
like a bright fluorescent bulb
painting us in pictures
of American health and happiness
where no one smiled
but under the hats and scarves,
who could tell.
I am not a poet 