white, adj. 1. Snow, snowy, snow-white
and over there, whiter than white
even the sky has been white for weeks
smoke from stacks, white-hot
against the white night, and on every
white birch, a hawk’s breast,
hard as marble and white. 2. Snow-
white, pure, innocent, virginal.
Indeed , everything is betrothed
and everyone is color-blind, love-
blind, blind, blind, blind. 3. Snow-blind,
as they say in the far north where
they have those seven damn words for snow,
see: snow. 4. I am weary of chalk
and ivory, suspicious of anything creamy
or niveous. 5. Give me pallid, pale,
peaked, pasty, dull, dingy. Even dun.
6. I am desperate here where the crows
are colorless against the pure driven drifts
of snow, their breath albescent.

© by Jeanie Tomasko. 
Used with the author’s permission.