February 2021
Author's Note: This sonnet attempts to sum up what the TV weather forecasters try very hard to
whitewash at this time of year.
Snow Mist
A pseudonym for airborne slush,
it paves the Interstate with mush;
a drool of snowglops, cold and wet,
as beautiful as frozen sweat.
Drippings hang from sodden trees
and drop what looks like moldy cheese
or cultivated streams of snot
on every naked garden plot,
and solders to the drab cement
six clumps of doggie excrement.
It slimes the streets with greasy spray
till every car is charcoal gray.
“Snow mist”? Right. A lovely call.
I call it crap, and that is all.
Author's Note: This sonnet attempts to sum up what the TV weather forecasters try very hard to
whitewash at this time of year.
The Turban
You look magnificent without your hair.
You look indomitable. You look proud
beneath the turquoise turban that you wear.
That turban doesn’t tolerate despair—
no whiffs of what you’d never say out loud,
no mourning for your fallen chestnut hair.
Instead, you’ve taken on a feisty air
that never fails to captivate the crowd—
just like that winking turban that you wear.
She’s bald! the turban cries. But you don’t care;
it seems that you’ve entirely disavowed
all myths that claim you’re less without your hair.
We see only your radiance up there,
more eloquent than kerchief, crown, or shroud,
out-glittering the turban that you wear—
which causes us to entertain a rare
surmise: something unearthly has endowed
you—and the turquoise turban that you wear—
with majesty. With or without your hair.
©2021 Marilyn Taylor
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