WHITE IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF COLOR

This is not the season’s
first snow—it is the second. Shoveling
narrow paths on city sidewalks; this is not
how we want to spend our early evenings,
but we do it anyways. This is not a perfect
snowfall, yesterday’s polluted snow
salt-and-peppers today’s fresh batch,
mingling to dingy gray. This is not
purity, not beauty, not truth
in somewhat silence, in scraping
of metal against black ice, frozen ground.
This is not our destiny, our winter weight
straining against this heavy burden.
This is not enough exercise
for our brittle bodies, not an excuse
to spend time outside in a turquoise
twilight. This is not our favorite chore,
not breaking angry icicles clinging to gutters
like grudges. This snow packed path
I made for us to day is not
an escape route, not an uphill battle,
twenty feet long and two feet wide,
eight inches of snow on each side. It is only
a ribbon-white shoveled path
unspooling ahead, pulling
us towards both ground and sky.

Jessica Fox-Wilson is a graduate of Hamline University's Master of Fine Arts in Writing. Her poetry has appeared in several journals, including Poetry Motel, qarrtsiluni, Epicenter and Rive Gauche.  Her book length manuscript, Blameless Mouth, was a finalist for the 2005 Philip Levine Prize.  She blogs at 9 to 5 Poet and edits Asphalt Sky, an online literary journal.