Wind Chill – Cameron Morse

Downstream from the Quad Cities Generating Station,

a train of steam rolls over the surface

of the Mississippi. A four below zero,

the wind is chill as a razorblade on my tongue,

a communion wafer of high carbon steel. I walk with my collar

pulled up and my head held down

and my face held together in gloved hands.

Wind pushes clumps of snow off branches and in midair

they disintegrate into particles of diamond glass. I cannot see

the water below the rolling conflagration

of its conflict with the air, its long train of ghostly flames

lifting off Moline. Only I am out walking today

above my uncle’s house, strings of geese draped

overhead like prayer beads.

Cameron Morse lives with his wife Lili and son Theodore in Blue Springs, Missouri. His poems have been published in over 100 different magazines. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. Visit his Website, or Facebook page, for more information.