Early Winter
I know you are unhappy with the way I closed
the cottage, but you store those words away
for next summer, when we’ll open doors to find
spiders swinging between the pitcher and tea cups,
mold creeping across the floorboards below a shutter
not quite shut. Last night, an early winter storm
closed all the passes north. We are cut off;
the cottage must get on without us. So now you kneel
before the winter chest, pulling out coats, fur caps,
gloves – anything you can find to place between
our bodies and the next storm. You hand me
a jacket stinking of mothballs. You will hide yourself
so completely behind goose down and Gortex
that there will be nothing, not even fingerprints,
by which I might later say K was here. She touched
this cup, that plate. You’re icy silent today:
no Zip up. No You’ll get sick. You’re saving words
for three weeks from now, when a cold takes revenge
for you, and then your words will come as scalding
as the soup you bring. What are we doing, K?
What will we have three years from now to talk about –
insect shells on window sills, the color of an unworn scarf?