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in
pamphlet collection, the shape of every
box, 2007,
tall-lighthouse,
ISBN No. 978-1-904551-29-4
The Word for Snow
The
Inuit have twenty-two words
for
snow, I told him, but he didn’t want to hear,
didn’t
raise his head from the bowl of dough,
thumbs
kneading flour in a frenzy.
The
lawn was freezing over, but the air stayed
empty
and I wondered how the Inuit
would
name this waiting—
the
radio playing to itself in the bathroom,
the
sound from the street of
ice-cream
vans out of season
in
this town where we don’t have
twenty-two
words for anything,
where
I learned the name
for
round hills built on plastic
and
bothered by seagulls, the bridge
where
a man was killed in the strike
and
where they want to put street lamps
to
keep away the kids.
From
the window, I watch
the
sky as it starts to fill. In the kitchen,
dad
sifts flour, over and over
as
if still panning for something.
Helen Mort
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