The day in freezing beauty longs to belong

The day in freezing beauty longs to belong & February

arrives like a houseguest you’d forgotten was coming

observe how perfectly cold: she breathes glass around

each forked and doubtful twig, her very air sounds

sure and grey and thins what you say to puffs

-listen, she won’t stay long she interrupts, but

you see her moving in, you bring her tea and stoke

the fire and take her coat and then her bags and

there’s her dog and oh my god, what is happening

and where did all the good space go ? you can

have my bed, you insist, missing sleep already with her

moon reflecting snow that’s yet to fall. Paint February’s

heavy split branches, clear glass leaves curl’d-in like

mirrors, roads so colorless with ice you taste your-

self falling,

scrape the windshield, the chipp’d decision not-to-paint

scatters stars, salt pellet gems to melt frozen light from one, two, three

levels that keep us home, make our mayors declare

emergencies, our dogs howl to be let out-and-in, our

birds hover

lest they explode their nests—that is what a poem

must be, February as we hover waiting-so we don’t

collapse everything with the weight of ourselves, plus what

encases & disappears us in awe, our cracked wool-wrapped

hands grasping clammy to hold her, pack her & thankfully

move her along,

but wait a minute, wait just one minute

as we pause our lives

& cock our heads

we almost hear the breaking & there’s

this pull to stay