Dyker Heights, 2017
by Natalie Louise Tombasco
The quiet
is what gets you
thinking. Winter sneaks up,
slips through your skin.
Out the window
an abrupt crump
of its black boot on white.
It’s a grumpy neighbor
chewing on life.
In the yard, you leave warm
milk for the stray thing
pussyfooting around. In the bowl,
it abandons one small hair
as if to say, thanks.
The hush-hum heat rattles on.
You want to go out, stay in.
Knock-knock. All the parties are going:
string lights and schnapps,
the kindle of talktalktalk
and fussbustle and tinselkiss
and giftglow and
someone making snow angels
on the hardwood floor as you ghost
out, because icicles
are more your speed.
You’re stuck in a clear spike,
a slow drip
off the roof. Time blooms
daggers from a fountain.
You drift off the porch, onto the road
where the first snow in its sleep,
suffocates potholes. On rubber tires,
winter lurks so quiet
you never look over your shoulder.
Natalie Louise Tombasco is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University and serves as the Assistant Interviews Editor of the Southeast Review. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Butler University and grew up in Staten Island, NY. Her poems have appeared in The Minnesota Review, Antioch Review, Southwest Review, Sonora Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Meridian, Salt Hill, Third Coast, The Rumpus, The Boiler, among others. She was a runner-up in The 2019 Pinch Literary Awards in Poetry.