by Jeannie Prinsen

I hate winter rain, how it soaks
dirty snow heavy, sluices beneath ice
dams at the curb, how it seeps,
weighs. Get used to it, they say,
this is the future, no more
old-fashioned winters. As though
nostalgia for childhood’s red-
cheeked seasons oppresses me, not
the inexorable slide into melt,
humans glaciering slow
toward refuge, beasts foraging
in bewilderment while we choose
drowning, calling it progress, moving afloe
across a sea of our own design.

Jeannie Prinsen lives with her husband, daughter, and son in Kingston, Ontario, where she is a copy editor for a local news organization. Her writing has appeared in Barren, Relief, Dust Poetry, and elsewhere. She can be found on Twitter at @JeanniePrinsen and Instagram at @jeannieprinsen.