Eighteen eighty-eight, a Thursday
the twelfth of January:
It had been warm all morning,
with a soft, southerly breeze
melting the snowdrifts back
from the roads. There were bobwhite
and prairie chickens out
pecking for grit in the wheel-ruts.
On lines near shacks and soddies,
women were airing their bedding—
bright quilts that flapped and billowed,
ticks sodden as thunderheads.
In the muddy schoolyards, children
were rolling the wet gray snow
into men, into fortresses,
laughing and splashing about
in their shirtsleeves. Their teachers
stood in the doorways and watched.

Odd weather for January;
a low line of clouds in the north;
too warm, too easy. And the air
filled with electricity;
an iron poker held up
close to a stovepipe would spark,
and a comb drawn through the hair
would crackle. One woman said
she’d had to use a stick of wood
to open her oven door.