Rusty Blue Snowflakes

scattered across

the bridge:

paint chips,

too cold for snow,

 

what looked like

a hundred feet

to the freezing river

slush chunks

 

white in

the black water.

some do-gooder

gave me a peanut

butter sandwich

 

hours ago.

The ice slides

under my shoe

full of holes.

 

Hunger slides

under my cold,

yet I can write

 

with a pencil

on the yellowed walls

of my brain.

 

Smooth gray lead

sliding over

the paper

third-grade penmanship

in Mrs. Foshee’s

warm classroom.

 

Paper makes a blanket

for my frozen mind

in the well of concrete

at the end of

the bridge.

 

I could write on old newsprint,

if I still had my pencil.