Snow Bound

an unemployment cheque,
shop-lifted necessities,
beer-bottle deposits and you
are all I have to pin myself to,
as clouds chariot over
the steeples of the forest
to other lands; falling
like blessings on other heads,
while I sit wondering
if the seven-year itch
I cannot scratch is really
trying to tell me something.

or is it me - nerve-wracked
by simple circumstance
and the dragnet plain
of bankrupt possibilities?

my eyes shift uneasily
as the mail-slot jumps,
sending me another
thousand thousand offers
on life and living,
while I contemplate
only railroad tracks,
bridges and dim distances:

I have so much further
to go than I ever dreamed
fit, wise or imaginable
through necessity.

by Jack Ohms