A Poem by April Salzano

Shoveling the Trampoline

 

Who does this? is my first thought.

My second, how cold IS it out here?

I am rescuing my son’s summer

pastime and therapy tool—

proprioceptive or vestibular sensory

input? I can never remember which—

from the weight of three day’s snow.

The center is sagging, stretching

and will give out

if I do not. I am not

strong enough to lift

shovelfuls up

                     and over

                                   the top

of the protective enclosure.

Each scoop must be shoved through the entrance,

an unzipped hole more narrow than my blade.

Soon, I am not thinking at all,

one with the shovel, heaving

each clump into a growing pile below,

careful not to scrape bottom

and tear fragile, frozen nylon.

 

 

 

April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania and is working on her first (several) poetry collections and an autobiographical work on raising a child with Autsim. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspiration, Deadsnakes, The Rainbow Rose and other online and print journals and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly and Bluestem.