wintry mix

barrage of wind and sleet and then this dandruff dusting of snow. 4 am had me thinking the building would blow down and now this colorless stillness, an oblique brightness of sky.

drafty windows, water-stained ceilings. our brownstone crumbling back to the land one moldering brick at a time.

the elements, always at you, rarely with you—stay awake. don't get too content. shovel, salt the street.

your throat a frozen downspout, each cough a clog in the gutter. your voice hardened over, silenced, stuck to the roof.

you can't see it, but you can hear it—a plane overhead. that rumble of low growling echo.

the plane lands. they collect their bags, a steady walk through the terminal. automated doors at the exit, a chill grips wrists and ankles. they shiver, shoulders buckling by the idling taxi stand, cowering into the crevasse of their chest, aching to dig through their ribs to their heart so they can hold it like a thermos.

winter in new england. unapologetic. a relentless, callous season.

there are warmer places, to be sure. and yet we stay.