The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Jane Ellen Glasser

Winter Storm

She woke to white fields and a screen of snow

so thick she could barely see the shed.

He had left early. There was another place

to go to once night fell. Tree to tree, a red

cardinal stitched the white air.

The garden that had worked her hands

all spring and summer lay buried. She felt sad

this morning, looking out on so much land

that held nothing. She would always wake

with a cold place beside her in the bed.

He would always return to the house in town

for the children's sake. She had read 

the winter storm was coming. She was prepared

to wait it out. The distance between, a backroads

route, would go unplowed for days. She stared

at the dwarf maple, bent low by its heavy load.

The white-roofed feeder swung in the wind

like a ghost’s lantern. She told herself it was good

enough that he wanted her. Before he left,

he had chopped and brought in wood.