Read Poem: Winter Afternoon by Carlo Danese

Parking on side streets, so impatient for spring the way your first girl shivered
until the heat came up, gas was cheap so you left it running
soon the windows fogged and you could pretend
that no one walking by saw you, but
people know your car anyway, so

You drive clear out of town, that farm you worked
last summer had a shed, good half mile
from the main house, you remember
it was clean, they kept it so clean, the wife
once proudly explained; ‘In case of guests’ pointing

At a rough cabinet high up on the wall, away
from the dirt floor littered with corncobs, leaves, scraps
from some fence that got in a tractors way, inside
piled high with moving blankets; her uncle drove a rig for twenty years
and the worn out army green one they sent him home in.

The sun finally fallen behind…