Snow Mist
A pseudonym for airborne slush,
it paves the Interstate with mush;
a drool of snowglops, cold and wet,
as beautiful as frozen sweat.
The drippings hang from sodden trees
and dump what looks like moldy cheese
or cultivated streams of snot
on every naked garden plot,
soldering to the drab cement
six clumps of doggie excrement.
It slimes the streets with greasy spray
till every car is charcoal gray.
“Snow mist”? Right. A lovely call.
I call it crap, and that is all.
Marilyn L. Taylor, former Poet Laureate of the state of Wisconsin (2009 and 2010) and the city of Milwaukee (2004 and 2005), is the author of six poetry collections, including Step on a Crack (Kelsay Books, 2016) and Going Wrong (Parallel Press, 2009). Her award-winning poems and essays have appeared in many anthologies and journals, including Poetry, The American Scholar, Measure, and in the recent Random House anthology titled Villanelles. More recently, Taylor was named a finalist in the 2016 X.J. Kennedy Parody Contest sponsored by Able Muse Review, and was named the winner of the Margaret Reid Prize in the 2015 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. She was also one of 12 finalists for the 2016 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Taylor taught for 15 years for the English Department and the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has facilitated independent poetry workshops throughout Wisconsin and across the country. She also served for five years as a contributing editor for The Writer magazine, where her column on craft appeared bimonthly. Taylor moved from Milwaukee to Madison, Wisconsin in 2012, where she continues to write, and to teach under the auspices of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Continuing Education programs and Lawrence University’s Bjorklunden Seminar Center.