Defrost

Author: Abigail Betts

It’s a warm, wet world.

My body is damp,

And my jacket chills

My skin.

Hands slip along

A leather wheel.

It feels just like

Sweaty palms

But fingers are

Cold to the lips.

Face feels heavy and wet.

Drips on the brow,

Like a cold sweat.

Rain drips from hair

To the neck.

I swear I hear the drops

Sizzle and steam

On skin.

Headlights flash by

In a foggy glass haze.

And there are tiny

Headlights

Strung above and along

Lit-strip malls,

Arranged into snowflakes,

And wreaths.

In the dark rain

On black ice, highways

Are Technicolor holidays

Like pink trees.

You pass lines of

Christmas trees

Left out in the rain.

Your pity and worry 

Seem so silly:

Trees are born in the freezing rain.


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