Michele Wolf

Snow Globe

Six inches expected, and the solemn
World has quieted to a standstill,
Watches the clouds release a topcoat

 

Of crystal fur. Snow cloaks the roads.
The thickened sky is an opaque soft gray.
The only sound is the steady wheel

 

Of your own breathing. You remember
That musical snow globe—Sinatra

Booming “New York, New York”—

 

Today a collectible, its skyline defined

By the twin towers. You carry the
First winter without them, sky still ash.

 

Silhouette

The sunlight seeps through the wispy

Cloth of your billowing shirt, shows off
Your low-slung shorts, silhouetting you,
An astonishment in the wind. The hidden
Cello of your shape—the waist and hips
No nuanced surgeries can fix—is a cargo you
Will always carry. You skip with the others
Down the hill, so at ease in your skin.

 

Last summer at the beach, a boy approached
You to ask, “How’d you get those scars?”—
Riveted by the embroidered mesh on each
Side of your chest. Bending over, you cupped
Your hand, then whispered, “Fighting off sharks.”

 

Ladybug

Where did you come from—red lacquered
Spangle, glistening black-dotted gem?
You cling to a woven window shade
In my bedroom, next to a window unopened
For months. I collect you in a tissue,
Prepare to release you on top of a brick step
Beside the front door. You lie on your back, your
Legs kicking wildly, motorizing your goodbye.

 

I still have the ladybug costume I bought
For my daughter, a toddler, for Halloween,
The headband floating two floppy antennae
That wobbled whenever she shifted
Her head. I also saved her pumpkin candy
Bucket and orange-and-black bat pajamas.
Trick or treat? How many mornings
And evenings I dressed her, dressed her up.

 

Evacuation Route

The pelican glides, for an instant alights
Atop the electric-blue sign—a skinny disk
That frames a swirly, eye-of-the-storm
White logo. The bird soars off, then
Zeroes in on the weathered pier, packed

With the regulars, sun-reddened men basking
Over their morning catch, blood on silver.

 

In a fracas of feathers, the bird nabs a snack,
Raises its royal bill to gulp. It has mastered
Escape, can detect how air pressure shifts
In advance of a storm. Today the sea
Is transparent, shows off a sunlit patina,
Platinum glints. Suds polish the shore.
Next week the pier will float, in shards.

 

State of Emergency

—Bashas’ Diné market, Navajo Nation, Chinle, Arizona

 

The lines converge, lock into a pileup of shopping carts,
Spill into the aisles, all registers open. At the end
Of the road, the canyon walls surround the monolith—

 

An earth-bound rocket, knobby double spire of red rock,
Soaring eight hundred feet. Yesterday, on the radio,
A Navajo rancher, his river soured to a science-fiction

 

Mustard yellow, strained to regain speech. An EPA
Backhoe, puncturing a shuttered gold mine, had released
Three million–plus gallons of toxins—lead, mercury,

 

Arsenic. No glittery flakes. “It’s taking a lot out of me,”
The rancher offered. He hauls water round-trip seventy
Miles three days a week, so his cattle, sheep, and

 

Feed grass can get by. In Bashas’ parking lot, miles
Removed from the Navajo land with poison water, a woman
Smiles at us—such sorry visitors, soon to return home.

 

It’s morning, a Tuesday. The dome of sky, cloud-free,
Is washed-out turquoise. Desert dust powders our shoes.
The market, we let the woman know, is crowded. Taking

 

Us in, she continues to smile, takes time before she answers.
She occupies time. “It’s like that every day,” she tells us.
“I come every day. A lot of us can’t afford a refrigerator.”

 

At sunrise, mountain bluebirds interrupt their routine
Announcements to ask, “How much food did
The visitors purchase? How much food can they eat?”