The sun's been made silver by an alchemist in the clouds.
Every late winter sunset holds more promise of spring,
with ice-blue February bending into the pink and green embrace of March.
I finally got around to telling you how I'm afraid of the second week in January, because
that's when my aunt and three of my cousins died.
Not altogether, but slowly, over time –
it's painful, all the same.
I just realized that,
when we went out in the woods together,
that's where I got these splinters.
They're just part of another prickly memory —
a stinging souvenir.
