Winter on Winnebago                                                     


                                                        

Just when you think
you’ll never be done with it,

the ice pulls back, leaving
what’s left, shard and stub.

Just when you think
you’ve forgotten the sound, the smell,

the sun, lusty and warm
starts to thaw. Just when you think

the ice—long deep and rutted,
fish moving like slugs

below—starts to crack and shift,
drift away. And sometimes,

the daggered ice, driven by wind and flow,
shoves ashore, pushes into juddered heaps.

Needles thrust and surge, clatter
like shattered glass. The fox, already

mated, stops her midnight weeping.






                                   Karla Huston


















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