Cold-Weather Love

I will love you like
the kids love Santa Claus,
I will accept your gifts,
and they will prove
that you exist;

I will let you drip
and harden over me like
sap at a sugar bush,
poured over snow,
curled onto a spoon,
melting on my tongue;

I will follow you like
the North Star,
and you will
bring me blessings
when I find you.

Winter Solstice

Love is a warm cabin
on the winter solstice,
a circle of friends,
cedar boughs,
sprigs of lavender,
plastic glasses meeting,
and standing close,
even in the middle of
a pandemic.

We have toasts or incantations
for love and for new blessings,
we say them with Jupiter and Saturn
forming a conjunction in the sky.

Love may take a while to unfold,
but we will breathe through it,
this transformation may take a while,
but we will breathe through it,
the Yule log will take a while,
but we will light up the sky as it burns.

We have the privilege of time and space,
celebrating this shift in the universe,
at an eight-sided cabin in the woods,
our laughter echoing across the snow,
the soft buzz of the generator in the distance,
and the crackle of the fires burning down.

Ode to an Island

love to me
is a moss-covered rock,
the whole bay
glittering from the sun,
the leaves turning red
and deep orange.

love to me
is little birds
flying everwhere,
chickadees and hummingbirds,
buzzing like june bugs,
or motors.

The World Blazes

On these days
though I see the colours
of Mid-October
rich and deep
burgundies and cardinal reds,
the bay twinkling dusty blue,

my soul feels like
the trees in the middle of winter,
maple, ash, and oak,
stark and empty
after all the colours fade and fall
to their annual deaths.

The world is blazing through
its own slow fade,
yet I am like the smoke
slyly rising
from an old bonfire,
nearly extinguished,
grey as ash.

I Will Not

I will not run,
I will stand determined,
Listening to my gut,
Knowing that even if
It speaks my doubts,
It clears my path.

I will not attach,
I will stand within myself,
Listening to the universe,
Knowing the signs all around
Might be only apophenia:
They tell me to unfold.

I will not be cold,
I will draw nearer to the fire,
Listening to its crackle,
Knowing if I lean too far in,
It will only teach me
To heal my wounds.

I will not rush forth,
I will stand in the shadows
Listening to the wind,
Looking for the neon sun,
It will awaken me,
It will remind me to be.

I Have a Story

Let me tell you,
I know that I
don’t know you,
but I have a story
I long to tell

about your lips,
sumac red,
your eyes unsure,
speaking tales
of someone
trying to escape
his greatness,
along with all his pain.

It is burrowed deep
under layers laced
with your varied words,
coated in crystal,
trimmed enough
but not cut clean.

I have a story.

I'd Heal You Up

I want to cover you in sumac,
piece by piece,
pressing it softly into you,
and holding it there
while your eyes close
and you let it heal you.

I picture you driving your truck
down every line
of the corn fields,
empty now, for winter comes.
I see you gazing left to right
at the sunset.
you drive and drive,
you gaze and gaze,
you inhale and exhale,
smoke rises,
your eyelashes are shadows
against the sky.

I picture the velvet
melting into you,
as slowly your body
is enveloped bit by bit.

I watch flakes land on your long lashes,
compare the pace of your blinking
to the rhythm of the snow.
It falls softly all over the ground.

I cover your lips last, but they
are already red like the sumac,
they are spread long over
your snow white teeth.
Only your eyes are left
and they glimmer in the sun.

This second skin of sumac
will heal you up, will make you soft again.
It looks red, but it is also brown
because of all the dirt within it,
after seasons and different winds.
You have dirt to shed, too.

I hold the sumac between my fingers,
breathe in its texture, feel its softness.
Your eyes are a fortress sparkling,
and when you drive across the field,
I see you scanning the shapes against the sky,
while you choose between your paths.

I put the sumac pieces all over your skin,
but you have to want to heal
for the sumac to make you soft again,
you have to want to be whole
and it might hurt,
and take some time.

If we made it to summer,
I’d wrap sumac leaves all around you,
make you emerald green.
If we made it to fall,
I’d wrap neon red all over your shoulders
and your strong arms,
but we have only the velvet pieces of the flower now,
and you have to breathe as I press it against you,
as I place it piece by piece,
in hopes to heal you.

The world is white now from the snow,
the sumac is red like your lips,
or the blood beating through our hearts
(were it out in the oxygen of the world,
but it flows blue inside us still).
The snow will melt and with it us too,
revealing only dirt left on the ground.

I’d like to heal you up,
let the softness of the sumac
insulate you from the pain
that is inevitable to feel
to make you whole again.

Hungry Me

I had hunger,
but you preferred snacks
over meals,
wanted not to dirty the dishes,
so you had less to clean.

I was hungry,
wanted to eat
full meals,
even though it took time
to order
or prepare,
to sit
and share.

I was always hungry,
and you fed me snacks.

Dust From the Tracks

I chose you
because of your long arms,
the first time they wrapped
around the full width of me
I knew I desperately
wanted you more
than the others did,

you
because of all your books:
fantasy,
politics,
business,
biographies,
stacking taller and taller
on your bedside table,

you
because you were quiet
and I grew up in a loud home,
you showed restraint,
you studied stoicism,
and I always felt
too full of fire,
too forthcoming,
I knew you would quiet me,

but I left because
I didn’t like being
the only one
in the room
when I smelled the dust
from the tracks
through the open window,

when I felt the train shaking
the walls before I heard it
beating along,
wondering how long it was,
where it was going,
where it was coming from,
the things it was carrying,

trying to catch a glimpse of
some history or graffiti,

I left because
we were always
smelling the dust,
listening to the train,
feeling it vibrate through us
from separate floors.