Ripe Peach, White Wood

by

Doug Ramspeck

So snow fell. Ice froze.
And our house lights seemed softer
by the river, the way a hand
can sometimes feel
against your shoulder
when you are
waking up. The way
the sky can blur on the horizon
like a ripened peach.

But then January
froze the river solid
and an ice storm rumbled
down from Canada and felled
two basswood limbs in our back yard.
And we were witness to the startling rawness
of the white wood—
like broken bones slicing suddenly
through skin. 

 

 

 

Doug Ramspeck directs the Writing Center and teaches creative writing and composition at The Ohio State University at Lima. More than 150 of his poems have been published or are forthcoming by journals that include West Branch, Rattle, Confrontation Magazine, Connecticut Review, Rosebud, Nimrod, Roanoke Review, RHINO, The Cream City Review, and Seneca Review. He lives in Lima, OH, with his wife, Beth, and their sixteen-year-old daughter, Lee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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