David Ayer

LA NIŅA, ARIZONA

      If the snow melted as it fell, record a trace of snowfall.
      - Arizona Cooperative Observers Program Snow Measurement Guideline
 
Gentlemen: the cast of illusion snow begs
in its obliteration of the surfaces we'd known
is the inference of snow permanence -
that it's the bulldozing of the world.
 
Snow sticks in subterrane we ourselves
could never have accounted for,
swarming like suture ants on an open wound,
sealing every last interstice like lockjaw.
 
And it fans out free of favoritism,
exacting texture from its mark at first,
then finding its feet - a sweep of drift here,
a ridge of high dune there, until it forecloses,
 
bundles us all in its vanishing point. Or so we thought.
Cunning aliens alighting in a zillion star-pointed
points to sponge up the world and escape via clouds
in cahoots. But observe: even our deepest gorges
 
emerged from that flattening intact.
Should we, gentlemen, infer this incursion
was more than mere reflex? Record this:
No smudge of volition marks the canyon.

Date of Birth: February 22, 1964 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Occupation: ESL instructor Email: andodouglas@hotmail.com Publications: Stirring, The Fiddlehead, dANDelion, dig, Red River Review, Yomimono, Jones Ave

- February 2004 - La Niņa, Arizona Sympathetic Magic Plans for Bringing Back a Dead Baby Ghosts The Blessing of the Egrets The Physics of Tea