Thaw

By Milton Bates

Hearing trickles turn into torrents, we know the bluff behind our house is letting go of winter, flushing it down a dozen gullies into Lake Superior.

A neighbor’s woods appears to be on life support. Plastic tubing links his maples to a clearing where a fire burns beneath evaporator pans. Our lives, too, could use support, a little sweetness after months of bitter. Why not connect those drip lines directly to our veins and save the firewood?

Last week my brother showed me the blisters on his palms, all he had to show for shoveling crushed stone onto fifty yards of liquid clay. The frost is unimpressed by his exertions. It keeps welling up, turning his driveway into a truck trap.

You and I have the luxury of nowhere in particular to go. Thaw, we say, drawing out the vowel as the sun draws vapor from the crusty remnants of snow in our backyard. We linger over coffee after supper, savoring the afterglow. Your hands lie relaxed and open on the table, as though to gather in what’s left of daylight.

About the Author: Milton J. Bates is the author of books about Wallace Stevens, the Vietnam War, and the Bark River watershed in Wisconsin. His poetry includes the collection Stand Still in the Light (2019) and two chapbooks, Always on Fire (2016) and As They Were (2018). He lives in Marquette, where he received the city’s Art Award for writing in 2020.

The Marquette Poets Circle is very thankful for the support of Marquette Monthly with respect to its five-year anthology Maiden Voyage

The 10-year anthology, Superior Voyage, is available for purchase. It has been selected as a 2023 U.P. Notable Book by the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association.