In Search of Mr. Frost

Our neighbour

has not said hi

in 20 years; bestows

the icy shoulder

when we wave;

boards his windows

before the solstice

each December;

heads north in the face of

snowbirds fleeing south.

We imagine

he has the highway

to himself, blasts

A Hazy Shade of Winter

in his convertible’s

open air.

We think he finds it

refreshing; rejecting

piña coladas below the palms.

Perhaps his compass

broke, has yet to figure

why Mexico isn’t what

it used to be, mistaking Inuit

for some hombres sans

sombreros.

But no one could be so daft.

Not even this curmudgeon.

So maybe the beaches

& the pools remind him

his wife succumbed to

water, that he’s always

travelled solo since ’06.

Maybe he keeps her

alive in a place the

white will never melt—

a snowman that he forges

in the squalls, like one they made

our very first Christmas here;

its fedora flying off

into our yard; how they treated

us to Baileys

when we went to give it back;

or it’s possible that its curves

denote a woman; that he’ll strap

a flowered bonnet on its top,

a mango for the nose,

cross his legs beside her

in the drifts, scoffing at the

feeble sun’s attempt

to make a puddle, one he’d have to

attribute to the warming

of the earth,

not a sloughing from his ducts,

betraying he might feel more

than simply numbing , bitter cold. 

Andreas Gripp

December 20, 2025

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