The Snow Arrow

If I didn’t know better, it hurt—

snow falling like so many straight pins

I held my face up to,

eyes closed, to be pierced so finely,

so numerously as I listened

to the tin rain mount

its bank of silence.

Such wee assaults on what little

skin I’d left exposed

were superficial for sure

except for one acerose flake, less pin

than knitting needle as it turned out.

Because everything soft in me

lined up behind that point

of contact, rearranged itself forever

as both portal and wound,

no more resistant than snow itself

into which, say, an icicle

from a dripping rainspout

neatly drops, as if

Cupid had wizened

into Old Man Winter,

his silver aim spot-on

just as fierce, just as fast

because in my case

the lightest snowflake touch

was to be struck

by a certain contrary lust.

After all, it’s not just snow

draped over bicycle pump

and garden rake I was made

to love, but something

used- or not supposed-to-be,

covered up

but not entirely.