From The Cold

Hard Frost


Past my dying garden your image follows.
This hard frost stands in the way
of green being green. Such a dolor,
pink forgetting itself when, not long ago,
it carried a summer melody better than Sinatra.
(And when I say too cool I only mean the weather.)

I leave lavender to dry on the bush, that dumb
kiss of summer crushed between thumb and finger
now nothing but cold lips, a buss blown
from my gloved hand just missing your cheek.
This winter we will neglect words like touch, stroke,
contemplate, both of us fortressed in such a lonely place.

But when you think of me, just once in the snow,
my body will be the red of summer, the petal of a garden rose
that smells like warmth when you get close, my hair
no longer hair but the rope in stories men long to climb.
Go ahead, take cuts to the front of the line.

I will be waiting at the top of a tower built
more from sadness than from stone. Look
at all the colors hidden there. See the slow movement
of cream spilled along the floor. The drop of honey.
The oranges waiting to bloom in the spring. The way
I care nothing for the cliche of milk and oranges and honey
but place this remembrance of past banquets before you.

The cold will not always ruin us. Someday your tongue
will again long to taste. Then we will speak in words
like shoulder, glisten, appetite and pretend what we lost
in this hard frost can be found. Of course we will
both be wrong, that lightning in a bottle nothing
but a static shock, a faint blue buzz, but wasn't
it all, while it lasted, even more than glorious?