I can feel the machine shutting down in sections

Little clicks from the furthest reaches

tick away the time.

Eighty-six days ago subzero sun beamed through the

snow blowing off the roof, and the particle effect

was calming.

It was only a matter of time before winter ended,

we said.

Here, seasons stopped sizing up the year.

The water moves as it always did, indifferent to

what we think of the cold underneath.

 

 

 

 

After hours of brown fields and empty trees, the land was a little different.

Winter held on in snow banks in open defiance of spring.

Fog made the town silent, and rental houses were empty–

quiet, even for a Sunday morning,

Hands turned crimson as one lake emptied into the vast Other.

A lone fisherman and his dog sat motionless next to Big Red with still lines.

I nodded and offered a low good morning.

The ice moving past in the water made me think of retrograde.

Then, land’s end:

cold as far as I could see.

The concrete walkway stood over boulders stacked against time.

I walked out on the snow as the water lapped arrhythmically, oblivious.

I felt small.

And vast.