Drift

 
 Drift, after Souster’s “The Six Quart Basket”
  
 standing,
 she watched snow fall
  
 a bushel cracking
 its rounded wood agape,
 whitening
  
 collecting winter’s fruit
 her children sang another
 silent night
  
 caught in seasons
 away from chores
 beckoning back to boiling pots
 and baking chops—
  
 not imagining,
 one day her frozen face
 in photos,     captured,
 trembling body,
 its own surprise of winter:
  
 a fragile oak leaf
 scatters fringes
 across a broken basket
  
 mute, alone
 slowly filled with snow
  

© Renée M. Sgroi, 2016


This poem won an Honourable Mention, and was originally published in   
The Banister, Niagara Poetry Anthology, vol. 31, 2016