By New England standards, this has been a mild winter so far. Yet, as the seasoned weather-watchers among us know, capricious March could end that trend with swift and heartless ease, leaving all inhabitants – human and otherwise – to suddenly (as poet Louise Berliner sagely reminds us) “ navigate familiar territory gone solid.”

Afternoon at Great Meadows and

by Louise Berliner

two swans stroll

on caramelized water

like prophets,

all leg and neck,

inspecting a beaver lodge.

each step makes a satisfying crack,

their unwieldy height forcing a slow motion waddle

as they navigate familiar territory gone solid.

they pace counterclockwise, puzzled,

perhaps wondering why the beavers don’t invite them in.

hot chocolate might be nice.

someone’s foot crashes through

it’s loud and there’s a belly-flop—

proper swan pose at last.

they turn fleet, the first inching

her prow among the icebergs

followed by her pal,

who savors the cleared path.

they run aground,

step up again to the surface,

shake out their giant handkerchiefs.

they could fly but

some memory tethers them to the tundra

summer, perhaps,

just below the surface,

perfect in grasses, worms, frogs.

Louise Berliner is a word wrestler and thread twister. She makes sculptures of words that sometimes look like poems or novels, and characters made of waxed linen, misc. threads, beads, buttons and fabrics. Her writing has appeared in VQR, Porter Gulch Review, Ibbetson Review, The Mom Egg, Sacred Fire, and various chapbook collections. Her first book , Texas Guinan, Queen of the Night Clubs, written in part thanks to an NEH grant, was a biography of a Roaring ‘20s night club hostess famous for saying “Hello, Suckers!”.