University of Maine, 1992 by Loralee Clark

Image | David Bertus

University of Maine, Winter 1992 

One night 

I studied long at Fogler library, floor 1 B, 

the in-between cramped floor 

basketball players chose to never access  

and the claustrophobic readily avoided, 

housing relic journals of geochemistry

crammed ceiling to floor.  

Wedged along the left side 

sat individual desks, one of which

I hunched over for hours 

studying information long since rendered obsolete.

 

At half past eleven or perhaps midnight 

the work-study student announced

the library was closing;

I hurried to pull down the pant legs 

of my long underwear, tuck them 

into my wool socks, stuff my feet 

into my boots, pull my thick, wool sweater 

over my head, wind my scarf around my neck, 

pull my hat on and shove my hands 

into my driving mittens after having packed 

my books and notebooks, pens and highlighters 

into my red backpack with the Esprit polar bear pin 

on the front pocket under the reflective strip.

 

As I entered the three-foot gap 

between interior, warm library sanctum

and cold, outer world, the temperature 

dropped at least 40 degrees:

expected. I inhaled the sharp tang of cold wet.  

As I pushed through the door into the night 

 

I was engulfed in hush and softness;

my mouth refused to close, smiling wide,

as under the pink-streetlight tinge of air 

lay several feet of snow.  It hadn’t been

predicted, could not have been observed 

from the windowless library floor; 

I stood stunned as soft flakes fell all around me, 

as weather that only exists in winter 

moved through me like a ghost.

 

Only the snowflakes,

the humid ring of light hovering around the street lamps 

and I, existed.

© Loralee Clark

Loralee Clark

Loralee Clark resides in Virginia; her website is sites.google.com/view/loraleeclark.  She has a book forthcoming this year, Solemnity Rites, with Prolific Pulse Press LLC and has been published most recently in Periwinkle Pelican, White Stag Journal, Chewers by Masticadores, Nude Bruce Review, Lucky Leaves, Everscribe, The Rockford Review, and Soul Poetry, Prose and Art Magazine.

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