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Christopher Kuhl
The Plain Fact of the Matter
Across the road on a below-
zero deep February day, I see a man
riding his bike, struggling
against the northwest wind. On
days like this it seems a losing battle:
the air is thin as hope,
hope thin as the last pale light
of the Garden, already foreshadowing
trouble with the unsteady rise
of the bruised moon. The bicycling man
has trouble breathing in the lung-killing
air and finally gives up,
abandoning his bike, crying tears
of frustration, desperation, which freeze
on his face, the skin seemingly
ready to shatter. He would not be
the first to go through that—skin like
a sheet of ice; just ask our ancestors
in the old graveyard: they, too, are frozen:
no matter who you are, cold is cold and
will slowly kill you before you know
what you’re about.
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