All day the glove hailed us from the roadbed,
each breeze and motor lifting fat fingers skyward
as the whole cloth flipped at times, gold threads against grey.
Only the crepe band at the wrist glued and ground
into asphalt. What digits went cold because of it?
I’ve lost them, too, usually in happier places:
markets, concerts, stepping crowds, though always in autumn
when the bite’s not bad, or in weak spring sun. Off with the gloves!
Goodbye to the season’s dregs, then I’m grappling
with exposure. No one can lend a single hand.
Noelle Sullivan
This poem was awarded 2nd prize in the FRP Competition 2014/5
Noelle Sullivan lives in Montana at the edge of Yellowstone Park, where she obsesses over books and photographs. Her three daughters run wild in the pines. Her poems have appeared in UK, Irish, and American journals and websites, including Crannóg, Magnolia/Abridged, Poetry Northwest, and The Bloomsbury Review, among other places. She calls both Montana and Ireland home.
Website: Noelle Sullivan