Poetry Friday!

A poem I’ve been working on. Again, all comments and suggestions are welcome.

winter

The February sun taunts pale and cold
behind roiling clouds: a thick gray river
rushing above.
And trees refuse to spread green fingertips,
remain curled into brittle brown fists
sprouting from a grave white body.

Behind storm doors sealed
and unbreathing windows,
I pace. I push dishes through soapy water
with crackedskin knuckles.
I climb the stairs
just to feel my knees grind dry air.

I think back to December,
when darkness collected in pools around the day’s edges
and bedded into the ground,
just beyond unblinking windowpanes,
and we called cozy the stale indoors.

And January – how it slogged and it lumbered
slow like a stalker
closing on wounded prey.
January ice bath puddles seeping through shoes
and gnashing winds scraping cartilage from ears,
leaving the carcass
for February.

But while I pace and I push and I climb and I fall
I recall my skin drinking June and July
and the sea slapping my arms,
its brine lingering in my nose,
my hair saltwater sticky on my forehead.
The sky hot like blue flame
that singed my eyes,
and how the sun chased us
under storefront awnings,
their shadecool concrete beneath our feet.

SFB

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