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.
