Blacksnow

by Alberto Zayden

He stumbles reaching for
The white trunk of a leafless birch
And falls face first into a snowdrift

Powder hovers over him like millions of albino flies
Fighting for a morsel of anything organic
That is still softer than ice

Fragments of lucidity suggest an urgency
But nothing pierces through the gray matter
Or the sinister camouflage of that colorless blanket

Baptism from a gust of wind wipes his path pristine
Even the sound of panicked pleas gets repossessed
By hidden mics from the bizarro world

Lip readers can feel the dread
But stay empathic to the silence

Bleached bones of dead messengers
Crunch through the frozen grass
Beneath the feet of would-be rescuers

Making its point icicle clear
The Black Snow stays mercilessly white

Dark thoughts gnaw at the fat of concern
The righteous need for resignation
The funereal want of entitled relief

The sickness took him long ago
Why not call off the search?