Winter of Dark Wine

Photo by lucas mendes on Unsplash

Oats steam on the stove
beside simple water boiled
to stop our noses from bleeding,
white opacity of foam
also a kind of privilege.
Breath turns to ice in your beard
as you make a personal blizzard,
clearing the road for tomorrow —

When you come back into the warmth,
your kisses will be wet.

I don’t know why you work
so long, so hard in the cold
when you know as well as I
the wind you refuse to acknowledge
will turn your exposed road back
to ice and snow in an hour.

Was the work the same —
were you the same those days,
those years you labored
to bring my heart and mind back
into the clear light —
out from behind those fetid walls
I grew to enclose them both?

Did your hands and heart tire?
Did they blister from the friction
between love and fear?