Issue Thirty-Seven - Winter 2021

Christmas Break

By Mel Flannery

The South Shore Train leaves in the morning.
One night to bear the dorm’s unnatural silence.

This first real snowfall of the season builds slowly.
Outlines etched on bare trees.

You’ve told your first almost real love goodbye.
Nothing’s bound to change. The sky begins to drop.

You watch it fall in breaths soft, steady and slow,
growing damp and heavy in muffled sound.

Sinking into darkness, silence looms,
snow with more snow weighing down.

You sit on the floor staring out half-frozen,
as snowdrifts lie still hitting cold ground.

Courtyard hedges hidden in evening shade
transform to reveal empty white castles.

The fragile spaces between branches
and ground collapse before your eyes.

The invisible distance between your window
and your world lies buried in layers of snow.

Whispers of soft nothings honor the loss, floating
past glazed eyes in spinning flurries.

Calm and composed, you slip under
the cover of the still white scape.

The wind rises, sagging branches
tremble and shake loose their weight.

If I could reach you in the silent storm,
I’d tell you it’s right to set yourself free.

Escape. Don’t look back before it’s clear.
Don’t get buried under a damp cold glove.

Courtyard castles are never meant to last,
no matter how inviting or enticing the trance.

Copyright Flannery 2021

Mel Flannery grew up in Chicago with a distinctive voice and strong imagination. She earned a Bachelors degree from Indiana University and Masters degree from Vanderbilt University. Mel worked as a nurse, teacher and researcher in the Midwest before moving to Seattle, where she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island. She loves the written word, art, and intelligent thought and currently enjoys life as a poet and writer in the Pacific Northwest. Her professor once said she had gifts for drama, poetry and fiction but may have difficulty choosing which one to use. Mel sees no reason to choose. They all find a home in her writing. Her poems appear in anthologies by Pacific Review and Harvardwood Publishing. Fish On A Line is her first deliberate attempt at a good story.

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