December Snowfall

By Kathy Barham

Scraping my car windows,
I remember a March snowstorm

in Virginia, a blizzard that made the pine trees
droop and the bird feeder sway

while we played long games of scrabble,
drank bourbon, dug out candles

and waited for the power to go out.
The second day, more of the same,

the lights still on, the jars full of water
still untouched, and glazed

as the cars we took brooms and shovels
to when the novelty of being snowed

in wore off and the men we said
we needed around had not

shown.
While the white wind

blew the snow we swept
back and tires whirred in their ruts,

I recalled the insistent way
the house finches had fought the air

and each other for food
and found myself pushing harder

while you manned the steering wheel.
On the third try,

when we rocked the first car
out, the only sounds

were the snow’s hollow crunch
and wing beats.

Kathy Barham, a native of Virginia, moved to Pennsylvania in 1998. She attended the Writing Institute in 2011 and retired from teaching English at Conestoga High School in 2012 after a 22-year career. She currently enjoys tutoring students in expository and creative writing, catching up on reading, and working on her own writing.