The Falls in Winter by David Jibson

The famous Niagara mist had frozen
so solidly it couldn’t be scraped away,  
so we sat hunkered together in the car,  
shivering with the dampness, listening

to Sarah Vaughan while we waited
for the defrosters to slowly do their work,  
while we talked about the long drive ahead,
over the Rainbow Bridge into New York

then to Connecticut, how we agreed
that the motel room in Ontario
was overpriced until we realized
that we paid in Canadian dollars.  

Forty years after our last trip together,  
I still see your lashes glisten with frost.

About the Poet:

David Jibson is drawn to the places where documentation thins out, where a landscape holds traces of something no longer visible. Much of his writing begins with a fragment—an old photograph, a journal entry, a rumor, a contradiction, and grows outward into narrative or lyric form.

In addition to his own writing, he honors the work of others as Editor in Chief of 3rd Wednesday Magazine, an independent quarterly journal of literary and visual art that publishes both in print and online at thirdwednesday.org. His author website is at https://davidkjibson.com/