d i g g i n g   o u t

:   m o n i c a   p a c e

on the first day
i’m all strangely light
and walk in the semi-ploughed street.
still snow, still falling
purple sky illumined aground
and the lunar ricochet shadows.

further down, everyone:
stumbling students,
eyes in a trundling car,
italians whose
words of the mediterranean

thaw the air between
snow story and african speakeasy.
one ear trained on the juke: sinatra
the other on "free will."
i tell that veteran, of what he will not say,

that all you have is yourself.
and I’m digging out
1600 miles
what snows like hourglass
-- a measured fall.

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