If I Were a Poet

August—
It’s 110 degrees.
Snow is falling like paratroopers,
an invasion landing on roofs and roads.

I leave the house of a strange woman
and wrap my face in a scarf
to hide from the snipers
and to keep the snow out of my eyes.
Traffic is stopped;
I’ll have to walk.

When I make it home three hours later,
the snow is piled so high
I can’t open the door.
My wife calls from inside,
not understanding why I don’t come in.
She doesn’t see the snow.
I remember the flamethrower
that I keep in a secret place for times like this.

But the snow won’t melt;
it just keeps falling, making an impenetrable wall,
and I know I’ll never be in that house again.