Like a Chance to Begin Again

Merrimack frozen over, gulls circling
from the landfill seem lost, reeling across

what flowed only days ago. The old men
huddled beside the boathouse tell tales

they’ve told, overworked stories of girls
who warmed the longest nights even more

farfetched when muffled by parkas and scarves.
In the wind they walk like birds, shoulders

hunkered in case of black ice, as the shell
of snow capping a factory bulges

like winter about to molt and give us
some wickeder form of itself—

it’s only a sliver of afternoon moon
cresting into sight the way my face

in the window almost glowed as I flew
to this place I haven’t called home in years.

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BRIAN SIMONEAU is the author of River Bound (C&R Press, 2014), which won the 2013 De Novo Prize. His poems have appeared in Boulevard, Cave Wall, Crab Orchard Review, The Georgia Review, Mid-American Review, The Normal School, Southern Humanities Review, and other journals. He grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts, and now lives in Connecticut with his wife and two daughters.