The poem I was going to write had basic
picturesque snow, but the -esque
started worrying me, feeling catchy as
a Facebook post, and then I got overwhelmed
with posts and thought I might wait
until there was enough snow to garner
some hidden meaning. And then I thought
garner was in Keats’s “To Autumn,”
and checked, but no, then I spent ten minutes
trying to Google the poem that was creating
my anxiety of influence. Then I had to
shovel, in truth, trying not to mess up
the beauty, not reveal the dead grass
but make a neat path through by spraying
the shovel with silicone so the snow would
slide sibilantly off. I started worrying
about sibilantly, feeling self-conscious,
maybe guilty, definitely guilty, since really
it was my husband out there shoveling,
not me, while inside I was basically making
airy nothings. Then I felt guilty for feeling
guilty, a traitor to my craft or art, so I
tried harder to be strong, yet small enough
to fit through the crevices of flakes. Then
crevices of flakes made me wince, hearing
in advance the faint snort of the critic.
And made me feel naked, and suspecting
I used the world naked for salacious
purposes. So I put on my hat and scarf and
slipped those small chemical hand warmers
into each glove and took care of the worst
by the curb, to save my husband’s back.
The plow pushes the dark ice and globs
of packed snow until they weigh enough
to fall off just in front of our house, and
have to be dug out with a special hoe-like
instrument and then flung upward into
mountainous heaps on either side of our
sidewalk, which is no small task, and explains
why the poem I wrote kept trying to rid itself
of everything else, to get down to itself.