You’re the Last Frost

She said her father said

To her on his death bed

And then laughed, We were all

Just horse thieves anyway.

One of her listeners

Enjoyed the anecdote

But was fascinated

By the unintended

Pun in, You’re the last Frost.

Something ominous stirred

In that phrase. While the thin

Edge of changing climates

Pressed various places,

Surely some place would soon

See its last snow, its last

Blizzard, the last hard freeze,

The last frost for the years,

Maybe millenniums,

To come. Finality

Rustled its trailing skirts

On the floor of the mind.

End of a line or end

Of a global era,

It’s not the end itself

That haunts the empty house,

But the thought that the end

Will never be undone.

The anecdotes moved on.

Other stories were told.

Each was anything but

The final one, although

What couldn’t be undone

Somehow left one undone.