Nain Christopherson

Winter

Suddenly—it seems like always—I am tethered
to a five-foot prehistoric penguin: floating,
my feet out from under me, nose to almighty beak.
Rain gloms in little droplets at the ends
of the tentacles of my hair and the hair
gives under their weight. Here, and elsewhere,
is a very dry orange, making suspicious all
its orange companions. And I’m a silo full
with so much fruit. Funereally
still (I’ve never been awake for this)
the penguin whispers: Being dormant
is not being dead. Except it might have been
the shatter of so many beads
of water onto the floor, might not
have been a penguin’s telepathic rasp
making that sound. It might have been the dense
thump of oranges falling
into each other; have been the near-imperceptible
whsssh of them through the air, the g-g-g-g-g
of their roundnesses down
the metal ridges of the silo, having
overflowed. And all this time
the clouds: that haunted, overcast
blue-green of grass through train windows.

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Nain Christopherson (she/her) lives, writes, and teaches high school language arts and creative writing in Salt Lake City. Her poems have been featured in The Canticle, SUNHOUSE, Scribendi and The Exponent II.