Katherine Collins

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A poem for Ben about snow

You should write a poem about snow. Not about snow 
            covering things with white 

   but what you said about the light 
and how it’s lighter – I mean the opposite

of dense – because the whiteness
                 covers everything. And sound 

  and how you said that noise is drowned 
out yet crunchy like Storm Troopers 

marching in formation across a vast white 
open space and how you always 

make hot chocolate when it snows 
and 
                                    how you crashed the M3
                                    (though actually 
                                    that was black ice)

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KATHERINE COLLINS’s poetry has appeared in The Rialto, Shearsman Magazine, Finished Creatures, Ink Sweat & Tears, Anthropocene, and the anthology Angled by the Flood. Her pamphlet was shortlisted in The Rialto’s 2020 competition. She works at the University of Oxford.