Poem: The First of February

The First of February

Well, here’s a pile of puke on a bank of snow,
Yoga-pants-purple, budget-cocktail-blue,
Lava lurid as a toy volcano,
Day-glo confetti frozen stiff as glue.

The fire hydrant’s calked in hardened gum.
A Phillies Blunt’s in a bottle of Pepsi
Inside a purple Shark Week Slurpee,
And it looks like someone pissed all over them.

A ghost-ship umbrella is partway jammed
In the snow heap’s side; its tattered black sail
Of nylon flutters; a stroller is crammed
Into a dumpster nearby. I’m stuck, a snail

Inside a crusted, slowly draining tank.
The chill in me is deeper than I’d like,
My pockets packed with lint, the blue snowbank,
Spiked with pink spokes of a Barbie bike.

Lingerie spills from a cast-off backpack.
The neon tubes are dismal, dark at dawn:
DRAFT BEER now drab, the BAR sign simply black,
Lattimer Deli’s knife-steel grate still down.

The stained-glass windows of McGlinchey’s Bar
Are dead. The only thing that holds a light
That’s real is melting snow, the run of bright
Rills altering to echoes in the sewer.

Feature Image: Daniele Idini