Black Igloo

The shadows thrown

by snowcaps here are thin

as hose or onionskin,

and what the clouds

cast massive over town

is not so proud

that it won’t scatter

once the South howls in.

At two the street-lit lawn

still squints our shades;

by dawn the focal

watts of sunshot want

to soak us in their flashy

spill, to flaunt

light’s violence past

the glass and chintz blockades.

For rest, we’ll need

an umbra old enough

to stand, a feat of cold

in loam-dark bricks

paroled from antique

drawers and frosted fixed

with all the chrome

eclipses we can slough

out sleep by hand. We’ll leave

no doors. No cracks.

We’ll steep our eyes

beneath a dome of black.

“Black Igloo” first appeared in The Arkansas International, vol. 2, 2017.