The road dead
ends into
this northern vista.
You can’t go
further than
the panorama’s
edge,
its virgin snow,
that ice-jam twisted
through the firs
below whose matching
fleece pajamas
gently let you
know you’re far
too pledged
to all the heat
at home,
the time you owe
and lease
and nearly own.
Atop this ledge
the wind is stiff,
and then it starts
to blow.
But even if
before
you’ve stopped right here
and winced as each
tomorrow
déjà vued,
tonight you sense
a yawn
in the frontier,
which tempts you to
the fence
and slides you through.
Glance back and watch
your boot prints
disappear:
the long hand
inches on,
but not on you.
George David Clark is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Washington & Jefferson College. His first book, Reveille (Arkansas, 2015), won the Miller Williams Prize and his more recent poems can be found in AGNI, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, Image, Ninth Letter, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. The editor of 32 Poems, he lives with his wife and their four young children in Washington, Pennsylvania.