A woman sits at a wooden table
Elbows on the trailing lace tablecloth
She takes a silver spoon
She mixes sugar into coffee
And glances at the plump yellow moon.

"Where is the snow?"
She asks a mouse
As it slides under her arthritic feet,
Disappearing between two floorboards.

There is a bundle of letters beside her.

With a sigh she selects a quill
From a deep desk drawer
And dips it in sloppy ink.
She writes:

The night spreads its cloak around my house
I have no use for the day
When the moon draws my feathers out
They sprout
From my skin
Gold-tipped and I always knew
I always knew they were there
I knew all along
You will miss the way my songs
Always ended in a whisper
My sleep always ended in a deep set chest pang
Your hand was soft at the back of my neck
And I no longer have use
For the skin
That keeps this rage in
That keeps this jealousy in
I will spit it into the snow
So the light inside me can grow
And you will see only
The resilient flutter of my wings
Outside your window.

It is the last letter.

With delicate, bony fingers
She pulls the strings about her envelopes
like a spider weaving a web

Glancing once more through the window
she smiles as the first graceful snowflakes
descend from the sky
takes her bundle outside
and tucks it away

In the morning a bird is seen
fluttering quietly out of sight;
it may have been a trick of the light.