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Lenny’s Welcome Back
Joanne Holdridge

Skiiing midday midweek
three days before Christmas
no one on the slopes but me
a few other season pass holders
and Lenny who waves with both arms
when he sees me coming up the lift
he pops out of his heated hut
into the snowy 12-degree air
wearing this year’s sky blue Attitash sweatshirt
jeans, snow boots, his gray wool hat, big grin
asks how I’ve been since mud season

I surprise myself and tell the truth
summer was hot, hard and it felt like a helluva
long wait for winter to come around again
he laughs says, Not the Florida type, huh? Me either
I came up here a decade ago following a girl
who loved to ski, she wasn’t very good
but didn’t care, she just loved the mountains
being on skis, taught me how when I was 62
she died of brain cancer a couple of years back
I knew something was wrong, but she didn’t
couldn’t talk about all she was losing

If it hadn’t been for her
I never would have moved here
never would have really lived at all

—
Joanne Holdridge lives in Devens, MA, but spends as much of the winter as she can skiing in northern NH. She has recently published poems in Atlanta Review, Illuminations, Poem, Talking River Review, and Willow Review, with additional work forthcoming in California Quarterly. She has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize.

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