Gabriella Fee

Blue and Gold

My mother lays a hand on my shaved head
as if I were a figure in a shrine.

The heater’s on
full blast. This afternoon

in the parked Avalon, we’ve talked
epidurals, Lexapro, integrity

of the poetic line, while the sun drops
over Walden Pond. Three bundled men

have cut a hole to fish. Through the amnion,
she says, a sadness must have passed

from her to me. Their navy jackets
darken, indistinct from ice

that looks applied by palette knife.
Its scalloped edges flare.

The secret locals know
is spring’s already here, though snow

will fall through March. The change
is in the light. Its blue and gold

burnished if not warm. From some
opening in our own thinning ice,

my mother pulls a jumping line—
Now, levity! she says,

and starts the car, lifts her right hand
off my head to take the wheel.