The Function of Winter

THE FUNCTION OF WINTER / Jay Parmi I'm for it, as the last leaves shred or powder on the walks, as sparrows find the driest footing, and November rains grow hard as salt sprayed over roads. The circulating spores take cover where they can, and light runs level to the ground again: no more the vertical blond summer sheen that occupies a day but winter flatness—light as part of things, not things themselves. My heart's in storage for the six month siege we're in for here, laid up for use a little at a time like hardtack on a polar expedition, coveted though stale. Ideas, which in summer htfng a crazy jungle in my head, subside now, separate and gleam in parts; I braid them for display on winter walls like garlic tails or onions, crisp bay wreathes. One by one, I'll pluck them into spring. If truth be told, I find it easier to live this way: the fructifying boom of summer over, wild birds gone, and wind along the ground where cuffs can feel it. Everything's in reach or neatly labelled on my basement shelves. I'm ready to begin to see what happened when my heart was hot, my head was too dazzled by itself to think. The Missouri Review · 127 ...