Tonight
a mist hangs on the wilted flowers in the iron ground
and cold birds twitch on wires running over the frozen fields.
There is no way to tell you that winter will last a few months,
and then thaw, or that these hopping birds, like clots of coal
against the snow, will nest tonight in the barn, warm with
straw
and the sweet breath of cows.
Windows
close with my breath as I go from room to room,
watching the lane, listening to the silver wires thrumming
along
the curving banks of snow where foxes snuffle and burrow
in their winter sleep. These are the things we loved together,
naming the animals, watching the pond freeze over, the last
geese
rising into their winter flyways—are the things I thought
would hold you, that and our love and the fire inside us.
I
will take my bath and stand naked against the cold window until
you call me to bed where we will move against each other,
feeling
the length of our bodies as we talk of the day and the farm
before we grow quiet, listening to the leaves brushing the
window
and the sudden bark of the fox in Turley’s Woods,—until we
sleep,
that long winter sleep, breathing the fire inside us.