erasing winter
brash spring sings of forever
winter bides its time

Frost burns through thin gloves
Fallen jackpine bars the way
The search continues
Refused light by day-shy dawn
By lamplight I hack branches

A bare corridor
Death exits frowning
Gilding her indecision
Judases keening laments
Mangled notes offering pause
Quarantined rage simmers
Tasting untapped violence
With xeric yearning
Zestless

Shrouded eyes
Distant to cope
Already halfway there
Faintly
Fondly
Recognise his face

Each purposed smear narrates
The poised faked fire of tears recent abated
Daubed pigments interlacing to store traces
Of gut-deep betrayals worn on lying skin
The never-before retraced in stain & tint
The sour taste of imagined sins
Rose-tainted views feign caught hate

Robust numbers resist
With stubborn clarity
As tunnelvision experience suborns denial
Facts persist

Quilting words to pad
This unfathomable ache
Wrap me up hollow