Midwest Winter
/Sharon Ackerman
To pass the time,
we make snow cream
with milk and sugar
or chunk off frozen swords
hanging from the eaves.
My mother has a way of holding herself
on gray days, wool coat
circling her middle, the same way a cat
curls to comfort itself
when in pain. She rues the day
she moved here, where wind bucks
and rears up at the window
with no mountain to break its spirit.
A flat freeze yields to nothing
but on black nights, we find light
layered in frost glistening
on the low grass, miles of it,
the moon an icicle
willing to make a deal with us,
swapping its glow for cold.
Author’s Note: This poem is my recollection of my family’s experience of migrating out of southeast Kentucky, the longing for mountains from the flatlands of Indiana and the primacy of extended kin and the landscapes that live within us.
Sharon Ackerman lives near the Blue Ridge of Virginia. Her poems have appeared in the Southern Humanities Review, Atlanta Review, Cumberland River Review, Coal Hill Review, and others. She is poetry editor for Streetlight Magazine.
