Hitchhiking in the Snow
by Isabella Jingyuan Huang
traveling through
a weighty night
suitcases lugging themselves
(twirling out tired beasts)
critter tracks
on the all-
absorbing
skin of snow
the spent skeletons of curbside trees
grew out
a second spine
It was
one of those weightless worlds that bloomed
into dandelions
and forgave
the invention of clock time
We can share a leg
a soft offering
from a dazzling stranger
trailing whizzes of smoke
So we squeezed the land into a windshield
and enshrined the snow
just tonight
*
looking ahead
flocks of flighted words encircling
a washed-out winter sky
in a town with too many fences,
I see
oceans of bubbling heads
huddled in clusters:
bare, masked, hatted, bare again,
some more unweathered
than others
from the fists of copper, cobalt,
yarns of finger-girth, wrapped tight,
frost-beaten
a chorus rises:
“Students united—”
“Will never be divided”
from the ocean
to beyond the heavy banners
stitched against the wind
on the edge of the crowd
a whiff of a faceless voice catches:
riding the waves
*** *** ***
The cold has knotted a rock in my throat.
I want to walk away.
but full of salt
is the earth today.
The toe-stubbing, well-trodden snow
differs only in
weight
from yesterday’s whites.
so what is there left to say.
***
without mercy
god’s fingers comb through the grey sky
but the sky holds
and will not break today
a little cardinal
will hop
on a cottoned branch
and sing a little tune
for what’s left of the season