Watching Snowflakes Melt
by Ace Boggess
against a small yard rock
one by one they reach its ragged brown
wait there like insects
white flecks of pocket lint
blink & I’ve missed them
vanishing inward in instant fade
the stone still warm from a sunnier day
a cycle: they land then shrink &
self-erase like suicides
jumping from bridges into the wet embrace
I want to catch them in my palm &
oversee their sudden thaw
they disappear too quickly
so I hunch down staring
at this protrusion from the garden
where they pause just long enough to rest
stripping themselves of themselves
leaning toward the invisible
present & no longer there
lovers who have stayed too long
under the covers of a stranger’s bed