Breath redoubles my cigarette smoke.
The city trees are creaking with snow.
Crystalline drifting under the branches
is not a new fall: it’s yesterday’s weather
beating a passing retreat,
diffusing.
And so now here beside shopfronts
we’re dodging tumbling ice
from cordoned-off buildings
as cloud cover clears, reconvenes,
and early winter mist gathers
its skirts across our mountain.
A new gratitude for being at home
forms in the light trapped in our foyer
against a melting soundtrack.
