Idyll

By Russell Atkins
snow brings restraint

and takes you by the arm: 
snow’s religious, morals over 
the landscape, relaxes

with a minister’s smile

and its hands folded

across a great belly

unlike authority 
elsewhere, snow will 
not keep a pair

of handcuffs 

snow hates the body 
and fashion 


                                                                [Here In The, 1976]

Copyright Credit: Russell Atkins, "Idyll" from World’d Too Much: The Selected Poetry of Russell Atkins, edited by Kevin Prufer and Robert E. McDonough. Copyright © 2019 by Russell Atkins.  Reprinted by permission of Cleveland State University Poetry Center.
Source: World’d Too Much: The Selected Poetry of Russell Atkins, edited by Kevin Prufer and Robert E. McDonough (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2019)