Winter 14

No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn. --Hal Borland

Headless birds on the sagging phone line
Bunched like billiard beads
All pushed to his side--Jesus! He's keeping score.

Spectators we wipe our frosted panes.
The Old Man's trying to run the table.
What a hustler!
Comes in like he'll take a turn;
Then plays like the break of doomsday.

Snap! Electricity down--far right corner.
Click! Phones out--east side.
Pop! Pop! Pop!--roads out--a wicked combination.
Then, kapowie!! Near right courner water blows sky high!

Now one green striper left.
Dark clouds whirl around his cue
While he lines up the shot.

...one ball left--
been here,
been here before.
Unlit cigarette quivering on his lip.
Walleye wandering.
Forehead squeezing, squeezing
until one droplet of sweat
Like a lost sperm
dances down
Into his eye just
At the stroke of...

Collision sends the other hard to the hole
But gamely it clops right back out
Back out onto the green field of play.

He closes his eyes. Exhales, deeply.
Then one of the waiting three shouts,
"Sit down old man."

copyright 2004 Bruce Nelson
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