Noelle Kocot

A Snowfall

Listen, don't you hear it?  A snowfall

Is coming on. A snowfall. Despite

The lights on these streets, the snow

Will fall.  It will fall forever.  You will

Walk in it, and you will be cleansed.

Or, you will listen to that heavy silence

Alone from somewhere not too far

Away.  No matter, it will fall, like it

Or not.  And at the end of the story,

Those who love you most will kill you. 

Noelle Kocot is the author of six books of poems, most recently, The Bigger World (Wave Books, 2011) and Soul in Space (Wave 2013). She has also translated a bunch of the poems of Tristan Corbiere, and they comprise a book called Poet by Default (Wave, 2011).  She has received awards from The American Poetry Review, The Academy of American Poets, The NEA, The Fund for Poetry and The Lannan Literary Foundation, among others.  She lives in New Jersey and teaches writing in NYC.