Snowbound In Cleveland Poem by Bernard Henrie

It was snow like this, but Detroit
not Cleveland.

I drank three Dubonnets
in the airport bar, but she is the one
who became very sick and died when we
came home.21, no 23 years ago.

Already, I am the oldest person
I know by first name.

Killing time, I read the sporting pages
and the International Socialist News.
The flights are still cancelled,
but the plows clear the runways.

A slow taxi back to the airport
and I see her, hooded, wrapped,
her phantom going past in the snow- -
the undercarriage of snow, the canopy
of snow.


Did I tell you she loved Barcelona?
She painted under ancient cork trees
in a fluttering blue smock, she used
the bright colors of a child's crayon.

Silence everywhere, like Barcelona's
white-washed shops closed during
the hot part of the day until freshening
winds appear often bringing the smell
of corrida, but we did not attend.
Men could not stop smiling at her
and I was one of them.