I.
Last year’s winter left a blanket of snow
So thick that all I see when I close my eyes
Is pure white icing and the taste on my lips
Is that of snowflakes dissolving on your tongue
You came out of nowhere into my winter storm
Crashed your truck head on into an innocent telephone pole
It was lost, I think, and can’t be blamed for you
Leaving your tire tracks in my slowly melting snowbank
Of a heart—oh who am I kidding, it was
Hot blacktop this whole time, perfect canvas for
Swirling curves of your fountain pen tires,
No *** holes, no frost heaves, just flat black tar.
And magically you found a shade darker than dark
With which to leave your pavement tattoo.

II.
I am a ghost in your house
Haunting shadows, for some reason even
In the light of day I still feel like I’m in the dark
And the silence so thick it smothers the blaring
Television and echoes so loudly I think my ears might
Fall off should I decide to take one false step across
Your floors and wake the dead.
My funeral was forgotten.
I died before my foot could even step above the
Threshold, six inches from the mahogany porch
That would still be standing should earthquakes
Shake us in our boots and dig up our roots
And your house could be razed to the ground but
This porch would stay,
Along with me, standing here, hand poised
Afraid to knock.

III.
I met you somewhere in between the
First hard frost of November and the first real
Snow of the holiday season—either way there was
A glaze of something cold across the whole city
And I swear to you I’d never recognize the place
Where you watched me flirt with disaster
And I watched you live out the end of
A chapter of your life in half-time.
If you showed it to me in broad daylight
It would be nothing but another quiet
Empty room for my spirit to haunt with
Linoleum floors and the faint smell of Jack Daniels’.
You could pour me a glass but
All I’d taste is snowflakes on my tongue.