August 2018
Author’s Note: About twenty years ago, a magazine editor who had published some of my fiction asked me to write a non-fiction piece about living in the tropics. I never did get around to writing that article, but one cool morning (in Florida anything under 60 degrees is cold) I wrote this poem.
WINTER AT SEA LEVEL
Sunlight cut through the sky
this morning,
slanting low like a knife
clenched between the teeth of clouds.
It’s cold inside the house,
so I get out of bed
& make a cup of coffee.
It’s still cold inside the house,
so I pull on a pair of jeans
& heavy white sport socks
with bright orange stripes
next, my thick purple knit sweater
& my black baseball cap.
I’m a fashion nightmare,
& I’m still cold.
So I open the sliding glass doors
to the back porch
& pull on a blade of sunlight
until it breaks off in my hand.
Now I’m warm
I’m burning up
I toast my words
I cook this poem.
— Originally appeared in Common Ground, 2006.
© 2018 Michael Minassian
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