For Robert Hayden (and my mother)

Paper Route

Sundays, too, my mother,
Weary-eyed woke
Before the sun’s thin rise
Over the icy plain
To start the furnace
And warm the oven,
Baking stones
In that silent house

She would wrap them gently
In faded tea towels -
As I struggled into separate socks -
And nestle them under the flap
Of my newsboy’s canvas bag

Under the crisp moon,
Cutting through the canyoned sidewalks
Moving house to house
Through rising hills of white,
I would plunge my frigid hands
Into their nested warmth,
Unwrapping these messages of love.

A sonnet for the snow

Snowstorm

It’s making settled homes seem farmhouse pure,
and frosting neighbors’ panes a distant blue,
So all enclosed takes on an oily hue.
We sit alone. Without, the frigid world
swirls punishing astringent falsities;
its softened lines and blustry, dancing curves,
and Christmas lights in misty-colored blurs
hide all forgotten ‘neath it’s creeping freeze.

Ah love, let us live forever in tonight,
While mistletoe kisses and eggnog smiles
Vaseline all in filter-focus white –

Cuddled in illusion, we’re tucked up tight.
We lie within our world of post card guiles,
blanketed ‘gainst the tempest-teeming night.


Dave Hessert