Fog grips the house with pale gloves
Like a long-ago woman dressed for visitations.
Mid-January, what snow remains
Is dingy as a book of lies.
Revise the calendar to
Cornstubble where geese throng
The easy pickings, where a freezing rain
Begins to ice the power lines.
It seems like forever, days like these
Where there’s no reason to celebrate,
No music canting its grace notes,
No sweet talk, no curses.
People of faith speak to ghosts.
A friend gets testy defending UFOs,
Citing a schoolyard of children, two Japanese
Pilots. It’s better I suppose
Than what I think which is nothing.
Like an evil spirit, the fog
Is swallowing our road.
Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, and South Dakota Review. Her awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 16 books, including Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press; 2013 FutureCycle Prize) and Ribcage (Glass Lyre Press; 2015 Kithara Book Prize). Colby is now a senior editor of FutureCycle Press and an associate editor of Kentucky Review.