Waiting for Snow--By Marianne Szlyk--United States

Waiting for Snow

Birdsong etches the thin air above spiky trees.
Rusty ivy armors the tree trunks.

Vines bind the branches,
but brown oak leaves droop like flags in defeat.

The tallest tree stands stark against a metallic blue sky.
Small clouds rise like sandbags against the cold.

As the wind rushes down the street like a siren,
the lone walker shivers. Her dog wears two sweaters.

Troops of birds swoop from tree to tree to tree,
fighting for the fries that teenagers drop.

She promises to scatter seeds and breadcrumbs
once snow calms this winter scene.

Marianne Szlyk recently published her first chapbook, Listening to Electric Cambodia, Looking Up at Trees of Heaven, at Kind of a Hurricane Press: http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodia-looking.html. Her poem "Walking Past Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Winter" has been nominated for the 2014 Best of the Net. Individual poems have appeared in print and online, most recently in Poppy Road Review, bird's thumb, Whispers, The Flutter Journal, Of/with, Walking is Still Honest, and Literature Today as well as Kind of a Hurricane's anthologies, most recently Switch (the Difference). In addition, her collaboration with Joan McNerney was published in Whispers. She also edits a poetry blog-zine at http://thesongis.blogspot.com/