The light outside’s gone white
like it used to in Syracuse
even on those rare winter mornings
when I’d wake to clear blue skies
sun splashed across the snow
I’d step out of class later
to a sky pale and tired
the sun snuffed out
I remember the effort it took
week after week junior year
to force myself back into the tiny study
on the fifth floor of the Hall of Languages
where the university’s Famous Poet
puffed continuously on his pipe
the air in the room the same color
as the sky outside only thicker
and I wonder if I hadn’t been so hungry
hanging on by such a frayed thread
so crazy in love with the sound of words
the way they tasted on my tongue
echoed in my ear, felt in my fingertips
if I would have walked away from the misogyny
in that room and left poetry behind
as if it had been the betrayer
Joanne Holdridge lives in Devens, MA and has recently published poems in Atlanta Review, Illuminations, Poem, and Willow Review. She has appeared in previous issues of Green Hills Literary Lantern and been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. As often as she can, she spends winters skiing in northern New Hampshire. Before she was able to devote her winters to skiing, she taught poetry and literature classes to English Language Learners at Bunker Hill Community College for three decades.