Michael Quattrone
Responses to Tina Chang’s Instagram Post, 12/18/20
Problem is, it snowed last night and the day is inviting me to play and to feel that first crunch of foot to frost. That is also art, my mind insists.
—Tina Chang
Page on my desk, snow
in my window, unwritten
life invites me there.
—-
Small bird hopping, tracks
on deep white snow, written song
makes no impression.
—-
Quick, make your shadow
on the noonday snow, a poem
lasts only so long.
—-
Snow fell all day long
onto my page, this short poem
used to be longer.
—-
Gentle editor
the snow says yes, yes. Even
as she hides the work.
—-
Two birds on the snow,
a lively conversation,
let the minutes show.
—-
Morning blizzard, bright
clean page, a line of footsteps
what I didn’t say.
—-
This is also art
my mind insists, no body
playing in the snow.
—-
Cold page before me.
Do I break the ice? Warm words,
legible in air.
—-
Snow and solitude.
The poet’s last line, boot prints
as she walks away.
—-
If I die tonight,
let snow fall ’til morning comes,
bury me in light.
—Submitted on 01/07/2021
Michael Quattrone is the author of Rhinoceroses selected by Olena Kalytiak Davis for the New School Chapbook Award in 2006. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Caffeine Destiny, McSweeney’s, No Tell Motel, Pebble Lake Review, and other journals, as well as in anthologies including Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present (Scribner, 2008) and The Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody, 2018). With Laura Cronk and Megin Jimenez, Quattrone curated the KGB Monday Night Poetry Series from 2007 to 2011. He lives in Tarrytown, New York.
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