by Catherine Jagoe

HOARFROST


Imagine–
the radio antenna on my car

has suddenly sprouted
teeth. It has become

a prehistoric twig, bristling with white spines.
The wire fence around the heating plant has grown frost thorns.

Each stem and stalk and looping spray of the trees on the hill
is rimed with tiny hackles, stiffly raised

like the million sensitive feet of the dying starfish
or the inner tentacles of anemones as they dry.

On the corner by the railroad tracks someone appears to have planted
a Walmart s frosted pine.

The grizzled trees float above their trunks
in hazy clouds, like white lichen.

I walk through groves
of white coral.


Published in Red Wheelbarrow Volume 6: 2005.