Nisha Bolsey, Chicago, USA
winter is not a metaphor
you dream of a frozen lake, thick enough to walk on. you walk a mile out alone in silence, dodge the ice gaps that could swallow you like quicksand.
you dream of a world covered in water—shrouding every treeline, brick terrace, windowsill. under the dream: cars spinning out, black ice, red noses. you dream the frozen sky punctured by shiny flakes, snow that turns to pearl underneath your feet.
you dream the final snowfall, the last hungry sky.
*
snow shelters roots
refuge for irises
blooming only
in the winter sun
and under rays
subdued, flora
slumbers, bends
so that it may grow
*
awake to winter—one hundred degrees.
we meet under the cool shade of the night moon,
roaming the earth like strangers,
pressing our toes against the swollen
soil. we listen for water, run our
hands through the wind.
we remember
or we don’t
or maybe the water’s gone
and we’re not here at all.
On the Shores of Lake Michigan
when everything
has finished dying
things will grow
wildly
in hollow waters
algae will flourish
blooming death-green flowers
someday, someone will take a bite
someone winged, or horned, or scaled
and will survive
and leave children
and grandchildren
to tread abandoned trails
and waterways
day after day
they will keep
cool in acid waters,
warm by purple fires,
dry under concrete ruins, will
hunt under deep green skies, will
try again
Nisha Bolsey is a writer and activist from the Pacific Northwest living in Chicago. She is a third-generation immigrant and an MFA candidate in poetry at Columbia College Chicago where she teaches writing. Her work focuses on wildness, social justice, our relationship with our environment, and the end of the world.