Nicole Stander

White Out

For my next trick, I’ll get out of bed.
Prairie blizzards thick and the wind
so fat you can’t see the hand at the end
of the wrist. I can’t see past next week.
Yesterday I put a spent bottle of sauv blanc
in a lone sock and snowflaked it with a rubber
mallet like a globe in a souvenir shop.
Wish I were here. I stowed the glass crystals
in the bottom drawer of my nightstand
under a hot water bottle, mood stabilizers,
and a tarot deck. I can’t see to Christmas,
or New Year’s Day, or growing old
with a little husband, good days saved up
in a ceramic piggy bank. It’s not about
the vanish, le petit mort, the trick is coming
out the other side. Temple curtain intact, today
I taste the sharp snowflakes next to my bed, red
them into pill-numb tongue.

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Nicole Stander is a poet pursuing an MFA in fiction at University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Mississippi Review, Calyx and Midway Journal. She resides in Omaha with her partner.