Poet Framed by Snow by Charlie Brice

For Jason Baldinger

On the hottest day in June,
91 degrees in Pittsburgh, Jason
posts a photo of a trip to Montana
taken one year before this
molten moment in Iron City.

In the photo he wears
a stocking cap, a tarn
behind him framed by
snow draped mountains.

He’ll warm up, I think.
All he needs is a
glass of crisp hooch,
campfire stoked embers,
and a few words on paper
from his poet’s pen—
words that make each
heartbeat count,
that coat with comfort
the endless chain of
meaningless jobs,
the absurd labor of
the many he writes about:
the broken backs,
the broken lives.

Charlie Brice is the author of Flashcuts Out of Chaos (2016), Mnemosyne’s Hand (2018), and An Accident of Blood (2019), all from WordTech Editions. His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net anthology and twice for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Sunlight Press, Chiron Review, Plainsongs, I-70 Review, Mudfish 12, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere.