Abby Asmuth

Snow Globes

Every time he leaves
He doesn’t know what words to say.
So instead he brings me snow globes
Snow globes from all around the world.

Detroit
tall towers clustered together –

                                   Texas
                                                                                               a cowboy on a horse –
                       Colorado
                                                                                                 a log cabin coated in snow –
                   D.C.
                                                                                  the White House (this one even sings!) –
          Utah
                                                                                                                        a moose by a stream –
    San Francisco
                                                                                                                  the Golden Gate Bridge –
    France
                                                                                               monuments from ville de l’amour –
          Norway
                                                    a Viking on a ship with a lion’s head on the stern –
                       Tokyo
                                                               a beautiful woman in a kimono –

Singapore
the Singapore flyer –

I now have a large collection
“I miss you” “I’m sorry”
No, just snow globes.
Yet no snow globe from home.

You She Once Knew

She once knew you.

You were torn like a mainsail
A mainsail that you assured her
Was only torn from years spent laughing at sea.
You had grown up sailing
On the shores of Chesapeake Bay
Always having dreamt of a boat of your own
A boat that you could take out to sea
And so you did.

Now she just knows a man.

A man wrinkled like a mainsail
A mainsail that has been stored away, unused
Wrinkles from too much stress for any man.
He had so much work
Too much work to go sailing
The boat waited and waited, until there was nothing to wait for.
So the boat sailed away.

Now she is lost like a mainsail
A mainsail from a crashed ship, now lost at sea
Lost in missing you, not knowing the man.
You had grown up sailing
On the shores of Chesapeake Bay
She had always dreamed of sailing with you
But you went away.
You, she once knew.
And she, she once knew too.

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