Make-and-Do Days

by John Davis Jr.

We liken the lichen on our old magnolia
to plain-paper snowflakes elementary
school teachers made us make so they could tape
them to windows, pretend it was winter.

With blunt and awkward scissors, we trimmed
tiny triangles in fattened folds
of circular store-brand coffee filters
until our fingers ached with metallic cold.

It is after the hurricane. A leafy limb
has fallen on our roof. Our chainsaws
disassemble spotted branches; we toss
debris groundward like clumsy northern snow.

In Florida, we never see flurries or drifts,
but our children have missed instruction
because the spiraling storm stole our power
and boot-high water submerges the reading carpet.

Pressing spinning teeth into our white-flowered tree,
we keep cutting like six-year-olds told
Christmas will never arrive and Santa
will miss our house unless we finish.

John Davis Jr. is the author of The Places That Hold (Eastover Press, 2021), Middle Class American Proverb (Negative Capability Press, 2014) and three other poetry collections. He is an eighth-generation Floridian with deep roots in agriculture. His writing has appeared previously in Deep South and in publications like Nashville Review, The Common, The American Journal of Poetry and others. He holds an MFA and teaches English and Creative Writing in the Tampa Bay region of his native state.