“Swimming Laps in Snow” by Mary Dean Lee

Photo Credit: Clay Banks

Arms balancing bags of soaked swimming gear, hair dryer, groceries, and dry cleaning, I stagger inside with snow blowing, boots covered, as ringing starts and I push hard against the wind to close the door. Reaching into my purse for the phone, everything tumbles down the stairs—wallet, glasses case, agenda, loose receipts and lipstick. It falls out last, silent of course. Wet hair tucked into my wool tuque and sitting on the stairs, I press a button to call you back. You answer and say some positive things about my roses you spent the day with, and I feel my socked feet pulled from boots hit the pool of melted snow, ice, salt on the rubber mat and swat your words with the back of my hand, taking issue with specific points, belligerent. You liked the essays, more snow showers tonight, but they are so personal?! Door opens from the kitchen and Joe peers down at the chaos, What’s going on? I hang up.

Artist Statement

I write poems to discover and express, to unravel and undress. To taste, and let my tongue linger a little longer. I am drawn to poke around, stir up, tease apart, fiddle with things that clash, jar, and jangle. I like putting words together to capture an intense emotion, insight, a moment of joy, despair, or confusion on seeing, hearing, embracing life's beat and bounce. My thrill is a quiet place outside my window, underneath the redbud towering over the fading forsythia. There I am, and every line I write, I am tossing a curly lock to the world.

Mary Dean Lee’s debut collection Tidal was published April 2024 by Pine Row Press and was shortlisted for the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2024 A. M. Klein Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2021, The Fiddlehead, Hamilton Stone Review, Ploughshares, MicroLit. She grew up in Milledgeville, Georgia, studied theatre and literature at Duke University and Eckerd College, and received her PhD in organizational behavior at Yale before moving to Montreal to teach at McGill University.