TOD IBRAHIM

THE INNISFREE POETRY JOURNAL

Tod Ibrahim

DEPTH OF SNOW

When I was a kid in Brockport, we'd get
so much snow you could make angels by lying
on your back and drawing your arms from your sides
together over your head. While the others
would flop down in the powder and flail
their arms into wings, I'd stare at the brittle blue

bright above the hushed white. Shadowless,
I'd stand there, frightened, fearing
the depth of snow, afraid of darkness, afraid
of stillness, afraid if I lay down
I'd be swallowed cold. After a while I'd let go . . .
and for a brief moment not be able to move.

It's the same feeling I have now when I'm waking,
can't move, and think I've died.

INVENTORY: WORD WORKS BOOK TITLES

Eight pale women
bodies we were loaned
flesh that was chrysalis.

Crow's eye view
following Fred Astaire
stealing mangoes.

Judging the distance
toward desire
looking for divine transportation.

Upon waking
the stones remembered
the last heat.

Altered in the telling
a diamond is hard but not tough
stalking the Florida panther.

Black book of the endangered species
counting bad names for women
woman from Memphis.

Tod Ibrahim
A two-time recipient of George Washington University's Jenny McKean Moore scholarship for poets, Tod Ibrahim has a Master's Degree in Liberal Arts from The Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor's Degree in English from the University of Maryland at College Park. At Maryland, he was Poetry Editor of the Calvert Literary Review. Since 1995, Tod has served as a reader for the Washington Prize for poetry, which is sponsored by The Word Works. In 2001, he joined the "Pick-A-Poet" program at elementary schools in Arlington, Virginia.

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Last Updated: Sep 16th, 2007 - 08:34:32