National Poetry Month : Frances Boyle,

Good & Valuable Consideration

 

Winter is a contract, made between cloudless
sky and the frozen earth, an emissary of snow
blustering between them.
                                 Winter is an exhale
as long as a kite tail, wandering and wavering
in the open field.
                       Last winter was a slope
of ice I could try to grip but inevitably
slid along, instants of pure gliding grace
followed by flailing for balance, windmill
arms and stutter-step feet.
                                    Winter is never
as long as you remember, or as short
as in flickering celluloid, the blur
when sprockets slip, strip. Winter

is emotion trapped behind
a steady blue gaze, imperious
and unforgiving. Ah, but winter is

icy air           lungs purified
by bounteous exertion                 moving skis
along tracks  the openness of sky,
its dove-grey                     the evergreens
near black but garlanded with white- blue

—winter’s currency, its fee for service.

 

 

 

originally appeared in Capsule Stories (UK) Winter 2020 “Bare Bones”

 

 

 

 

Frances Boyle is a prairie-raised writer, living in Ottawa.  Her most recent book is Openwork and Limestone (Frontenac House 2022). She is also the author of Tower, a novella (Fish Gotta Swim Editions 2018), Seeking Shade, an award-winning short story collection (The Porcupine's Quill 2020) and two prior poetry books. Her debut poetry collection, Light-carved Passages, will be republished in 2024 by Doubleback Press. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Consilience and Ode to Dionysus. www.francesboyle.com; @francesboyle19 (Twitter/X and Instagram)