Warm Hearts

Winter is here, and so are you.

Autumn has finished undressing

the blushing vegetation,

stripping off last year's outdated foliate fashion.

With a parting embrace of Indian summer,

He strides South with surprising haste,

as if feigning urgent business,

as if His discomfort is not apparent.

He can smell Her perfume in the air,

that sharp scent of snow yet to fall.

And so He flees, leaving His garments of

dried, dead leaves in the gutters and

driveways

as He does every year.

Winter creeps through the town in the deep night,

Her fingernails leaving frosty chicken scratch notes

on select windshields and windowpanes. 

She seeps slowly through window-cracks and house corners,

wriggling between painted toes and woven fingers,

giving us cause to press together more tightly,

perfectly nestled puzzle pieces.

While Winter wages war upon the bundled travelers

making the pilgrimage from house to car,

we will be warm, wrapped in each other,

sleeping beneath soft holiday lights.