Two Poems by Scott Davidson

Snow on the Cars

The couple setting off in dress shoes have no idea
what walking home means. Snow like this changes
perceptions of competence. Clueless and therefore

undeterred by muck and chaos, by the memory of sitting
in the lobby of their father’s building weeping as their
feet began to thaw. Later, on the balcony, cars along curbs

form lines that make them look abandoned. Snow has
hardened in harmless sheets conforming to hoods and
sideview mirrors. Winter back home transformed us

to heroes. All over town, cars that drove in cold from
the hills appeared on streets like battered scouts. Cars
with windows fogged all around, heat from who knows

how many bodies. Here, snow is sudden and never
prepared for. The woman in heels and the man in loafers
will understand how wrong they’ve been. Those of us

leaning on fences back home, peering down creek valleys,
take it on faith there’s wisdom in surviving where those
valleys lead. I was only a quarter mile from my house,

standing in snow and stubble of weeds. In my layers of
clothes, my cinched down hood, it was clear in the suddenly
anxious distance, we are all of us lucky to be alive.

Streetlights

Blue or not, the last man through the door
never noticed the color of the walls or the height
of the man running in front of him. In those ways he
knew he was a disappointment. Later, in the coffee shop,
stumped by what to do when he leaves, he waits for some-
one to enter and change the direction of his life. Walking
home he feels unburdened – night air, streetlight hum,
hiss of traffic like a river. As he crosses Broadway, looks
back for cars, anything could be about to happen.

Scott Davidson grew up in Montana, worked as a Poet in the Schools and lives with his wife in Missoula. His poems have appeared in Southwest Review, Bright Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing, and the Permanent Press anthology Crossing the River: Poets of the Western United States.

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