by Sara Backer

It’s #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIMEvery Day‘s archives!

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For several months, this snow
has held us under siege, indentured servants
of the shovel, supplicants at power line altars.

We drive through gray crystallized mazes,
forced into potholes, blind at every corner.
Our eyes burn from ceaseless white:

walls, windows, ground, and sky. I threaten
to paint each room lime green and you almost agree.
We hunker under the blanket we call Old Sparky,

and our old cat chisels herself between us.
After midnight, a full moon makes the clouded sky
bright as day—and pink?

I wake you. You confirm the sky is pink.
We never figure out the mystery.

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Sara Backer holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts, lives in New Hampshire, and reads for The Maine Review. She has published a novel, American Fuji, and a book of poems, Such Luck. She has two chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt and Bicycle Lotus, which won the Turtle Island Poetry Award. Her writing has been honored with residency fellowships from the Norton Island and Djerassi programs, ten Pushcart nominations, and a Plough Prize.

by Sara Backer

For several months, this snow
has held us under siege, indentured servants
of the shovel, supplicants at power line altars.

We drive through gray crystallized mazes,
forced into potholes, blind at every corner.
Our eyes burn from ceaseless white:

walls, windows, ground, and sky. I threaten
to paint each room lime green and you almost agree.
We hunker under the blanket we call Old Sparky,

and our old cat chisels herself between us.
After midnight, a full moon makes the clouded sky
bright as day—and pink?

I wake you. You confirm the sky is pink.
We never figure out the mystery.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sara Backer has two poetry chapbooks: Bicycle Lotus (Left Fork 2015), which won the Turtle Island Poetry Award, and Scavenger Hunt (dancing girl press 2018). Her writing has been honored with residency fellowships from the Norton Island and Djerassi programs and with eight Pushcart nominations. For links to her online publications, visit sarabacker.com.