A bright cold day in April
after Orwell
I’m looking out the window at black ice
that took me by surprise, the remnants of La Niña,
of Polar Vortex pushing south the bitter Arctic air. Ice
that sheaths the fixtures, railings. Glistens in disguise,
while I wait in early light for thaw. I won’t go out yet,
won’t risk the skid, the spin. The catastrophic accident.
The slip and fall that fractures hip. I’m playing
dead, pretending it won’t damage tender growth, despite
the broken tips, despite the houseless others huddled under mylar
in a tent at the brink at the border of my country.
I kid myself that ice will melt without the sun. A little vinegar.
Kathleen Hellen is the author of three collections and two poetry chapbooks, including The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin. Her poems have appeared in the Baltimore Review, Drunken Boat, Four Way Review, Massachusetts Review, North American Review, Puerto del Sol, Sixth Finch, Washington Square Review, Witness, and elsewhere. Hellen’s third chapbook, young girl in the flower of time, is forthcoming in 2026 from Lily Press.
Read other Letters to America online or in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, published in partnership with Trinity University Press.
Header photo by Yushan Ji, courtesy Shutterstock.
