by Todd Sukany

No wonder you take the high road as you whittle
words into a poem.  You suggest: concentrate
on a task, say . . . shoveling snow in your driveway,

and let your mind fly like the powder,
blowing back to the area just vacated
by your red scoop.  Focus that fine powder

swirling past your fogged, frosty glasses
and just before non-Sunday-appropriate
oaths join the ice fairies

that the wind puffs past your scarf, down your parka,
to mingle with the fat flanking your vertebrae.
At your leisure, you would, of course (or naturally),

begin to identify each vertebra by its Latin name,
harp some song about a random event
from childhood or adulthood or some other hood,

and make a tired reader type into the phone,
pro biscum latinatio expresso.  Expresso is American
for espresso and yet, reader, you knew that.

Oh, the surprise of crema entering this poem
on a dark night before your summer celebration
sips away the blizzard of confusion. (Note how I

brought you back to the opening lines again
to remind you of snow blowing itself into
a healthy poem? Sweet conceit--get my drift?)