Wintertide Reminder

The cross-hatched frosted grass

is plastered like tundra

to its Earthen Mother-

not unlike the sinews of muscle

that cling

stiff and silent to the pangs of sleep

that creep through my morning body.

Thick and tasteless phrases harden,

icicles from between my lips

as I wake.

Yet, grass is still more like faces,

reflected in foggy windowpanes,

filtered as if under a frozen pond

marked only by the lines of

a child’s ice skates,

and reflected in puddles,

deceiving in depth,

like inverse monuments

erected to mud-dwellers.

So, I fall foul to the bluster and slush

for a moment or two,

but I am reminded that I am alive

by hot geyser breaths

that steam the atmosphere

from my chest

to the sky.