In Winter, I Try to Write

BEE LB

after Ellery Beck

How many times have I written us into snow?
Your hardwood floors, your fireplace,
your comment about long socks and little else.
Nothing’s come of it. I have yet to hear
your boot crunch in snow. To see your
dogs’ wet noses snuff paths through the yard.
Your barn like any one of the winter paintings
I’ve found, wanted, and discarded my want for.
You’d rather skip winter— I’d rather look out
at a white sky emptying itself into the world
than nearly anything else. We play favorites
play feinting games. We dance around desire
and action. I pull you closer and you come,
until you go again. You offer me perfect
words and I am brought to my knees
until I remember the difference between your
fantasies and my world. I wake with cold fingertips
and bleary eyes. A grey sky that won’t brighten for hours.