poem

For My Daughter, Age 16, Downcast by Winter

by Philip Legler

April now, and from the ground up

the snow is going, melting

in its six-month hold, the way

ice locks the bay in. Trout,

deep under, rise as if

from their shadows, and along

Lakeshore you park our car

off the road to watch the ice-

breaker slice through and open us

up to summer, the first ore boat

at the harbor.

Ashore, you wade

through puddles, mud, slush,

water flooding our town,

in gutters, from roofs, wind

blowing off Lake Superior, shaking

the Amoco sign like kids

banging a lid. A kite,

bobbing with its string adrift,

swoops over Presque Isle,

climbs a moment, lifts your head

to the sun in a perfect sky.