Winter comes with tapered days
and wreathes in muffled whites and grays
all hint of color; the distressed
trees shiver now, like girls undressed.
The glass that hardens on the lake
looks almost deeper than the ache
in these two hands that hang like chains,
all Summers rifled from the veins
where fever burned some time before,
before the closing of a door,
before the silence and the drouth
of a blasted heart, a barren mouth.
Step forth, snow-mantled Death, and strew
your blight upon the living, brew
up storms, that all the birds take wing.
You'll be a fool again, come Spring.
and wreathes in muffled whites and grays
all hint of color; the distressed
trees shiver now, like girls undressed.
The glass that hardens on the lake
looks almost deeper than the ache
in these two hands that hang like chains,
all Summers rifled from the veins
where fever burned some time before,
before the closing of a door,
before the silence and the drouth
of a blasted heart, a barren mouth.
Step forth, snow-mantled Death, and strew
your blight upon the living, brew
up storms, that all the birds take wing.
You'll be a fool again, come Spring.
