Poems by Aurora Shimshak

Snowfall

by Aurora Shimshak

From Canary Winter 2020-21

Aurora grew up in the Kickapoo River Valley and now lives in the Yahara watershed on the lacustrine plain of Lake Wingra.

always looks like it’s coming
from the just out of reach sky

air’s magic trick
pulling from invisible seams
this softness

the slow of it

the way it insists
on soundlessness
checking on the high school choir
learning
in the old part of the building
the words to Handel’s Messiah

& the soothe of it
around
the steel barrel of the
garbage fire

its field-edge box
of matches

almost makes up for the dark

maybe makes up for
looking out the window in English
& the only thing that registers is still
it’s March
and it’s no use
pleading because it’s just going to last

feet numb
hands
squeezed between
your jeans
only warm in the

bathtub or right in front of the heater

but okay

but at least

but first one of the year
you can’t help but open
your mouth.

© Aurora Shimshak

To the swans, nine days before Christmas

by Aurora Shimshak

From Canary Winter 2020-21

Slow on the rock path to the garage
with Grandma, my mind deep in its cavern,

saying, Careful. Saying, Cold is just a sensation,
feel it in your nostrils, name it, cold, cold—

which is when we hear the honking,
look up to the cloudless

sound before crest of hill, their V
spanning arc of tree line, sun

slanting their feathers absent, wings
slipped into sky slits, reappearing

throat call: two breaths to the river,
two more to gone. Grandma says,

We’ll have to tell Grandpa, and I ask
Do you think they were swans?

Could be. Swans unzipping wind,
wood smoke, ice light.