1-3-17

1-3-17

Winter

Everything is sharp

The sky is a knife blade

We are hunted

Orion’s belt bright overhead

I was born in winter and am reborn

Into the shrinking and swelling of it all

So many anniversaries

Record snowfalls and a crowded

Calendar of remembrance

Layers of grief and celebration

It's dark and everything changes

Bodies heave open and snap shut

The stillness of the cold is just a veil

We all keep living and dying

Balloons and cake and baby jesus

Heart monitors and frozen graveyards

We have wait for the ground to warm

Before we can bury our dead

We cast ashes out on a frozen sea

One year everything floods, the year

My father leaves, and I help my mother

Mop the icy water up in our basement

While neither of us cries