The snow's/feet slip
By
Marty Walsh
out from
under it
and down
the mountain
slope it comes
flat on its back
white skirt
and billowy
petticoats
blowing
back over
its head,
whiplashing
rickety
pine sapling
as it passes,
bowling boulders
left and right
until it comes
to a juddering
sudden heart-
thumping stop
just shy
of the little village
in the valley far below.
under it
and down
the mountain
slope it comes
flat on its back
white skirt
and billowy
petticoats
blowing
back over
its head,
whiplashing
rickety
pine sapling
as it passes,
bowling boulders
left and right
until it comes
to a juddering
sudden heart-
thumping stop
just shy
of the little village
in the valley far below.
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Marty Walsh, whose most recent book of poems is Furniture Out in the Woods, Marty Walsh, 1999. Poem reprinted from Plainsongs, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, by permission of Marty Walsh and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.