(2002) (c)
My
prayers are fingerlings scratching an impervious surface—
even
gods and goddesses curl to sleep beneath winter’s ground.
What
winter offers is only for the empty-handed.
This is
my season to give and forgive.
This
winter waited like a rare good mother
while I
scurried to find my buried shoe, my nerve—
lost
like a key.
Waited
like one true love, jilted,
knowing
nonetheless I’d return.
This is
the winter I never dreamed of articulating—
a
meditation in water,
an
incandescent white so bright
it fractures
into color.
This is
the winter I need
to see
myself
godless,
singular, cold—
and
still very much alive.
