Burning Snows

I want to set the world on fire
and watch it burn.
Everything in it

has stayed the same except me
even the one-eyed corgi
with a nose for ghosts.

My family eats its young:
we commit a crime against nature
when we survive —

survival is all I have left.
The cygnets are big now
and the night bugs’ songs all together

shine bright as day
and the great horned owls
call on the edge of hearing;

I still find no shelter:
Pop’s old raisin cake recipe
tastes like ugly memories

and don’t even get me started
on jigsaw puzzles,
not even the pristine snow scene

with the white New England church:
there is no way into any of it
anymore.

___

Brian Jerrold Koester is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Net Anthology nominee. His poetry collection is titled What Keeps Me Awake (Silver Bow Publishing) and his chapbook is called Bossa Nova (River Glass Books). His work has appeared most recently in Poetry Pacific, Poetic Sun, SurVision, Versification Zine, Triggerfish Critical Review, and Revolver. Koester is an aficionado of single malt whiskey and a proud Cub Scout dropout.