Skidmore College Poetry Prize, 2016

 

One day in the spring, when I pull the car

into our gravel driveway, my mother directs me

                                             onto the lawn, instead.

 

She says she hates the two tire grooves that form

in the spring mud and set in the summer sun;

                           makes it hard to shovel in the winter.

She'd rather sacrifice the budding grass.

 

I make a joke--

In her hyper-rationality she cannot see:

the snow is gone, and won't return for another year.

 

"We must act,"

she replies, profoundly,

"As if it is always snowing."