Where had all the winners gone?

The steps, and the steps, and the

steps crunching through snow,

and that buzz in your stomach,

body like the Rock of Gibraltar

only framed in the context of metal.

When it is only you who carries

yourself to bed each night you wonder:

How can they blush, avert eyes from

the cold force of page-frozen hours,

without claim to their own greatness?

Now you find yourself in a clearing

as your cheeks pink at dawn.

Glowing trees, unkempt sod

Climbing hills which collapse as

you stumble in city slicker shoes.

Where had all the winners gone?

Your countrymen, tepid, crawling

into their holes to hibernate

like animals. You fight but for the hills

which flatten all who would climb them.

Josie Barboriak