Rhapsody

//09: cold.

you said to me in the summer that you would be back
by the first snowfall,

but it snowed last night and his red truck is still nowhere in sight.

i let the pale curtains fall back, drowning out the soft yellow light of dawn;
and i go back to my bed, and close my eyes

my hands are cold, but no amount of heat nor firewood
nor even just rubbing them together
can warm them up.

and i imagine that my grandmother is still
in the room besides mine and only sleeping,

not lying beneath six feet of dirt and snow
somewhere far, far away - across the ocean

and that breakfast will be whatever my mother
is making right now, downstairs,

not frozen leftovers from last night.

and i can almost pretend that the shadows of the
                                                                                        bare trees
outside are waving at me, and that the wind is whispering to me,
and that i am not alone.