Twenty Images of Winter

still in coats, layers, hat half-pulled to the side

brisk, my walk, the wind, too strong to christen a breeze

a long marathon, still, although in February i had thought i would be done

do i dare to open my lips, draw in the aluminum air, tin foil filling my mouth

the sun is almost unbearable in its brightness, like cheese knives so casually slicing through languid air

by the time the sun hits me, little cracks have already appeared on my knuckles

laughter, peel of laughter, young and clear. only in my mind, though, for not even trees have any secrets to whisper

on the best days, Russia has a thin film of blue over it. bells ring, toll. it is twilight beyond them.

smoke fills the car, an ember tries to breath. i can't tell if the windows are frosted or just trying to make it through.

my hands are too small for this. i can't slip into the buttery leather of a woman's gloves, only the scratchy polyester belonging to a forgetful child.

Donne thought that maybe a semi-colon can separate us from death. but this, this winter, this warming, this brightness in the face of temperatures positive but still below zero, is an ellipsis that tells me to keep walking. so i keep walking.

ice pelts my window, and metal scrapes the gravel. i huddle, closer, so that when i inhale, my stomach is tight with anticipation of the shards that i, too soon, must face.

i want to believe in the beauty of pure white, but instead there is the deceptive ding of sleet hitting my tongue

i tip my boot gently into what i thought was the sidewalk. it sinks in, the weight of it, and i cannot keep going.

head down, face grazed by the five o'clock shadow of pellets of ice, harder, less forgiving than your stubble

a car passes by, like a plane on taking off, full of bravado and splash

pebbles, perhaps, jumping into my boots. no, more sinister, leaving behind spots of wetness that sticks to my socks

a skirt when a storm shuts down cities is defiance. so too the red lips, crystallized into a smirk.

i want to push back my cuticles, so that they can hide from the doom of extremity for just a few more millimeters.

untouched, a whole field of white, behind a wooden fence. orchid white, flour white. it turns blue with my gaze, that deep, deep pressure of being pure.