We could, if we stopped
Paying attention to the clocks
That glower down like stern
Parents from our bedroom walls,
Be up all night, hugging our pillows
For company, and talking
Like poets about how much it hurts
To be so far apart on a frigid night
Under a luminous sky set ablaze
By the dazzle of dancing snow,
The wind’s song an echo
Of how strongly absence can pull
At a man’s heart and leave him
Feeling not only lost and alone
Inside his own home but completely
Undone by longing, the kind
The cold compounds until it too
Turns to drifts and howls against
Locked windows like the moans
Of a lover searching through
The empty winter streets for any
Hint of his beloved—if only he knew
She sleeps beneath the snow,
Sleeps and sleeps because how else
Can she survive the pain of distance
On such an impossibly cold night?—
Which is how it feels, we say,
To not be together on such a night
As we turn away from the bright
Squares of our windows, and, sighing,
Say goodnight, before squeezing
Shut our minds and resuming
That forever long wait for spring.
