Pleasant Street

BY DAVID SLOAN

A surprise? Jeezum crow!  Just when the maples 

and ash are flouncin’ in their fanciest dresses, 

old lady winter goes all Cruella, so green to the gills 

with envy she decides to unload a cat’s track 

of down on the town, turnin’ the roads so greasy 

that someone’s beetah coulda slid right into Begley’s 

yard, just like in the storm of ’98, 

when young Bert Snitzer hammahed down

Pleasant Street and took out his mailbox.

‘Course back then the ice turned trees

into crystal beards, power lines dangled

like undone laces, and the world was so stoved up

that some folks had to take in neighbors bundled up 

and shufflin’ down the road in a daze. The Howlands 

ended up with a dozen huddled around 

their kerosene heater; even had to dust off a baby 

crib from down cellar and jimmy it into a corner.  

Old Mr. Warner wasn’t so lucky.  When power 

blinked off, and it turned dark as a pocket,  

he missed a step and pitched down the stairs.  

The fall didn’t kill him; being a loner did.   

Three days later they found him crumpled

stiff and livid blue from the freeze. 

This storm’s different. October’s not January,

even in Maine.  By ten, before the plow

makes another pass and the sun melts 

the snowpack, my daughters will lace up, 

pull out their skis and pole down the road, 

hopin’ the Ross brothers will be planning 

an ambush.  The girls will giggle and stick out 

their tongues as those gaumy boys fling 

wayward ice balls, the most peril my girls 

will face all fall—at least until huntin’ season.

After Colin Page’s Frozen Streets 

David Sloan  Now semi-retired from teaching English and drama at Maine Coast Waldorf High School in Freeport, David Sloan is a graduate of the USM Stonecoast Poetry Program.  He is a two-time recipient of a Maine Literary Award and the author of two poetry collections—The Irresistible In-Between, and A Rising and Other Poems, both published by Deerbrook Editions.