Poetic License: ‘Cold Winter Morn in Florida’
PHOTO PROVIDED
Joe Pacheco
For blood grown thin
forty Fahrenheit is Siberia;
breezes suddenly blue
and brittle
shiver through citrus leaves;
a birdsong
bleak and off-key
chills our sense;
sunlight,
pale and tentative,
shelters us from shade
where wisps of vapor
from our mouths recall
northern winter breath
thicker than cigarette smoke,
that reminds us:
Death owns a time share here
and watches,
dressed in warm-ups,
from his lana