spring blues

celine dipp

the snow feels warm in the spring, 

warm and heavy. sobering and clutching, 

these dull roots ache in the porch light, 

like singing bricks under cold heels. 

the snow feeds this night like a cheap thrill, 

a dim motel lamp with desperate hands, 

the suffocating moonlight that holds stale, 

air tightening the lull of the molding laundry room. 

spring petals deepen into this throbbing chest, 

muddy cacophony of soft pink worms, 

sift through sullen soil too red for sky, 

too grey to weep, too black to lie. 

the cream trail in front of me stretched, 

and fell dull, like a snapping telephone wire. 

this rubicund sludge stains my nail bed, 

the sobbing neon sign by the bakery finally died. 

this may be some chartreuse, marose eviction, 

escape through the heavy black doors, 

a void of thick tar and blindfolded conviction, 

snow separates the crystal bottle and an oval. 

the ripe opal white approaches thin lies, 

this city dies and the beatniks scale down the, 

mountain that sprouted with wilting daisies, 

dandelion tears in a lion’s garden, or paper. 

the stone-faced cynics ascend the sanctuary, 

crawling down slumped pastures and a pastor, 

calloused by the square on the screen and the, 

gentle way the innocent turn to a scream. 

maybe we’ll wake from this feverish dream, 

this towel sops and my palm trembles, 

these wrinkles assemble the swollen story, 

that chokes just before the punch. 

spiking tastes like technicolor lightning, 

there’s a knock at the front door and the stairs, 

still and hum in their sleep on the floorboard, 

and it’s me and the knocking, slumber. 

the snow docks at the station and places, 

three long noses out on the platform, 

i’m wallowing and the stripe is yellowing, 

the terror doesn’t quite seem to strike them. 

the snow faces this machine and says words, 

silver, crystal sorrow in a mid-ripe crisis, 

white, uncontrollable weathering, 

quiet.