ryan scariano

The Worst Winter Since 1989

For the past three days,

white wind and heavy drifts

have closed the road.

Besieged by ten below,

but there’s enough to eat

and the power has held.

Then a strange miracle rises

from beneath this rented house,

from beneath winter—

the green sound of tree frogs.

I work into the night

deciphering the offer—

an invitation for escape

down to their abode,

to clamber amid the rotting

foundation, to sit

in their muddy rooms,

anoint myself

at their mystical font,

take communion

of spider beetle moth,

to be for a moment

born again.