THE NEW ICE AGE by Michael Minassian

My friend’s wife called
to ask if she could stay
at our house but begged
my wife not to tell
my friend she was there.

When he called, I lied to him;
later, they got back together—
we never saw either one again.

Sixty-five million years ago
an asteroid hit the earth,
dinosaurs became extinct
and the last ice age began—
the way I watched
my friend and his wife leave
my house, their footprints
filling up with snow,
birds circling overhead
in a slow spiral until
they were out of sight.

MICHAEL MINASSIAN’s poems and short stories have appeared recently in such journals as, Live Encounters, Lotus Eater, and Chiron Review. He is also a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His chapbooks include poetry: The Arboriculturist and photography: Around the Bend. His poetry collections, Time is Not a River and Morning Calm are both available on Amazon. His poetry manuscript A Matter of Timing won the 2020 Poetry Society of Texas’ Manuscript Contest (publication: Summer 2021). For more information: https://michaelminassian.com