PROSE POETRY​

ROBBIE CURRY
​

NEVER WINTERLAND


Ice in the bird bath quickly yields—more resurrection than winter here. Snow’s unknowable except in memory and old photographs stored in the attic, where a scurry of squirrels wreak more clamor and damage than freezing storm. Tonight’s forecast: lows below 40, cloudy with a chance of iguanas. Born in the Midwest, lover of blizzards and blue-lipped months, I’ve yearned for this temperature drop on the cusp of worthiness—an excuse to unlatch the flue, woo stubborn wood to flame. I park on the marble hearth, force-feed the underbelly of the grate with yesterday’s news crushed round as yarn balls, match-torched, fickle. Roar dims to sizzle, ‘til a knot on the top log catches like a candle burning, reliable fire for hours of dreaming, reading logs like clouds. Outside, iguanas fall from trees, cold-blooded, belly-up. Presumed dead, soon they surprise, rise again with the sun’s warm hand.
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​Robbie Curry is a former journalist. Her poems have been published in Chicago Quarterly Review, Bacopa Literary Journal, Litbreak Magazine and Harpy Hybrid Review. She won first place in the ghazal category from the Florida State Poet's Association, and was awarded a $5,000 artist's grant from the State of Florida.