Winter's Relic
Winter is on the steps
and in my hair. She croons
as she starves sparrows
rocks pigeons dead in the cradle.
Spare me her holy patience
her frost palimpsest on the window
her holiday coffins.
Feed me instead
on figs and sangria
scarlet under a firecracker sky
rippling with heat and Spanish moons.
Throw me on a bed white with
linen, not this nullity of snow that
melts away beneath my fever.
Let me have something
besides these starving cats
under my skin, hear something besides the blues
they blow like a train-whistle from
the feral saxophones of their throats.
But if I open my eyes,
I see reflected only winter's relic;
a twist of shadow in the blizzard,
trying to hold back the wind,
while around me the plague
doctors work, looking for
blood from the stoned, and
the Fearless Captain stands at the door
overseeing our dispossession.
December 2021
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Images: Looking southwest from Five Barrows under Snow, ©James Ravellius Fair Use
The Snow Queen Flies through the Winter Skies, © Edmond Dulac Public Domain
