The Blasted White

torn up jazz beating the house, squawk of packed snow a few days away, loose white dotting the windows, mercury dipping below the human threshold, gray crayon sky • black-clad dog walker the lone spot out there, 2 black dogs on tethers pulling with clouds from their mouths • dead Dodge squat square tires, two feet of snow in the bed, igloo’d in from grater plows • fog prowling the avenue, sticking to windows and teasing block heater cords strung from garages to curbs – lightless xmas strings bandied over indifferent white • the blasted whiteness stacked against fingery trees defeated since November • hares almost blend in, wide antennae giving them away, black paw pads on snow hind legs • buses sparse & running clean but slow, shivering stop waiters with fur and hotshots cursing the blue scows in their limp • alleys done by ice, cars neaped into garages with nowhere doors • five more days of ice windows, stilled shovels, shivering sorels, stifled socks of wool, door frames shifted, stubborn deadbolts, hollowdoor brittle • bundled pause-pregnant chattering parka’d movers of the white clearing, chipping, scraping, the strum of bleached bass & rips of shovel bring it on • tear those notes apart and start the improv jam, the one where we grunt and do it again