Salt City
Syracuse, NY
The snow-trucks spill whatever salt
their worth, while still each day the snow collects
in new assaults,
a feckless labor of the lake effect.
A couple geese from Canada
are squabbling like two geezers at the orange
clad sanita-
tion workers, too few to be a chorus,
old love birds back from warmer climates.
The cold uncovers edge of scarf and collar
yet people find it
somehow mild in their loneliness, tolerant
of this small city filled with ice
accreting into grimy, patchwork mounds
since paradise
still echoes homeward, white as noise downtown.
