SMARCH

Last year, we changed the name,
first called it shit-March, then Smarch:
a month of foreboding weather.
What was there to look forward to?
Gray snow, backyards full of dog shit,
spring break with no money and nowhere
to go? Here, spring is all wrong,
where the lake dominates and flannel
becomes second skin by May. And everyone
wants escape from heat as forced air, forced
courtesy, forced conversation. We’re no different.
That scare we had on the Ides, in the car,
the deer outside skittering black ice,
our brakes on the same surface? That moment
of flashed cliché—I saw you, you saw me,
and we were parting beyond possibilities
of crunched metal, busted spleens—
should have served as soothsaying.
But no. Instead, just like the month itself,
there we sat weeks later with February's
leftovers: crushed valentines still stuck
and abandoned in mailboxes, the melting snow,
with more brewing on the lake's horizon.
Toward our end, when finally it came
like crocuses sprouting, we still strapped on
boots and smiles as morning routine. We still
grabbed our tools as we headed out the door,
for you the shovel, for me the salt.
We cleared the front walk.
We made it safe to pass on by.

By Michelle Menting
Originally published in PANK (2010).

Michelle is originally from the upper Great Lakes region where she grew up the youngest of 12 siblings in a small cabin in the woods. Her poetry and prose can be found in Harpur Palate, DIAGRAM, The Southeast Review, PANK, Bellingham Review, Midwestern Gothic, decomP magazinE, Connotation Press, The MacGuffin, as well as in other places, including the chapbooks Myth of Solitude (Imaginary Friend Press, 2013) and Residence Time (Dancing Girl Press, 2016).