DIGGING IT OUT
The icicle finger of death, aimed
At the heart always, melts in the sun
But here at night, now with the porchlight
Spilling over the steps, making snow
More marmoreal than the moon could,
It
grows longer and, as it lengthens,
Sharpens. All along the street cars are
Swallowed up in the sarcophagous
Mounds, and digging out had better start
Now, before the impulse to work dies,
Frozen into neither terror nor
Indifference, but a cold longing
For sleep. Mter a few shovelfuls,
Chopped, pushed, then stuck in a hard white fudge,
Temples pound; the wind scrapes icily
Against the beard of sweat already
Forming underneath most of my face,
And halting for a moment's only
Faltering, never resting. There
is
Only freezing here, no real melting
While the thickening silence slows up
The motion of the very smallest
Bits of feeling, even.
Getting back
To digging's easier than stopping.
Getting back to the unnerving snow
Seems safer than waiting while the rush
Of blood inside one somewhere, crazed by
The shapes one has allowed his life to
Take, throbs, throbs and threatens.
If
my heart
Attack itself here in the whitened
Street, would there be bugles and the sound
