Poem of the Week, by Gregory Djanikian

First Winter in America

- Gregory Djanikian

I walked out into the January blizzard,

my breath froze into small clouds,

and ice was hanging from the trees.

The dunes were dreamy animals;

I heard shovels striking music.

White eyelashes, white mittens,

I thought I could become

whatever I touched.

A year before, in another language,

I held the desert in my hand,

I tasted the iridescent sea.

Now I stayed quiet, afraid

I would never see it again, the sky

shattered into a million pieces

and falling around me.

I watched my mother inside

walking back and forth in her heavy coat,

and my sister rubbing her hands

to make some kind of spark.

I could imagine furnaces rumbling

all over America, heat rising

through the vents, parching the air.

And I stayed where I was,

someplace I had no name for,

not for the snow or my standing still

and watching it fall

beautiful wreckage

deepening

with hardly a sound.

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For more information about Gregory Djanikian, please click here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gregory-djanikian

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