Dreaming Of Snow

You can go your whole life
never knowing a measurement for the soul,
waking up next to the person you think you love,
and find no fault.
For decades you go on,
crashing through your own disappointments
until you are reminded of the cost of impact.
We’re atoms and stardust, an act of chemistry bound in muscle
that never had a chance.
Suddenly burnt bacon reminds you of
all the things you never said,
the dust in your eyes is just the Earth
trying to reclaim you.
Some New Mexico clouds dream of snow,
that feeling of release that leaves them feeling lighter.
You think of this as you shave your head;
how they can imagine such a sea change
and still live with themselves.
They pay failure no mind and move on
when the wind shakes them
to try again a little further down the road.
There, even if only a single snowflake falls,
the asphalt will have forgotten by the time it melts.

Amanda Crum is a writer and artist whose work can be found in publications such as Eastern Iowa Review, Blue Moon Literary and Art Review, and Barren Magazine, as well as in several anthologies. Her first chapbook of horror poetry, The Madness In Our Marrow, made the shortlist for a Bram Stoker Award nomination in 2015; her latest, Trailer Trash, will be published by Finishing Line Press in early 2019. She currently lives in Kentucky with her husband and two children.