The snowglobe settles slowly
Into the townscape. She watches
Fretful for the postman
Caught in the storm. Caught in the glass.
She saddens. She shakes the globe
For the movement of it. To stir foam bits,
Frenzy the weather vane
On the farmhouse down the lane.
The postman holds a letter.
From the farmer’s son, off to war?
For the wife worrying the hens just now?
The snowglobe settles bleakly
Into the townscape. She sips cocoa,
Tongues a marshmallow and sucks
It gone. The firehouse is red. The firetruck
Is red. There are no fires.
She saddens deeper.
She shakes the globe.
For the wonder of it. What will become
Of Santa astride the icicled house
Or of the gifts in the chipmunk-
Cheeked sack? The gift for the postman
—a new pair of boots. The gift for the wife—
a basket for eggs, this time handles. For the weather vane—
A buffer for the verdigris.
She has her own gifts hidden.
She’ll wrap them with last year’s
Paper and this year’s tape.
She will gladden as she scissor-
Blades the ribbon into curls,
But just now it’s far too sad—the cobble
And the fences lined with crows.
Too terrible—the drowning
and the blizzard and the always of it all.
Jonathan H. Scott was born in Virginia and resides in Alabama. His writing has appeared in a variety of literary journals, most recently: Floodwall, Poet Lore, Unsplendid, and Weave.