Sometimes Winter Comes When You Least Expect It

Like a winter day that arrives in June when there’s nothing to do but drink black coffee, watch the rain, so too will the thin white inch of memory round your neighbor’s corner, disappear down the block. Like touching my finger to your lips, so too will the day-long mist sharpen something for us, perhaps our image of how life could be on a different street. St. Francis stands by the birdbath, his arms opened to us. If not for the rain, I’d call it a miracle. The wind gusts obscuring your face, any thoughts as to why we remain so devoted to the return of winter—its forced isolation. That thin white inch—is it a wound that will never heal, a promise continually broken? My finger breaks the mirrored water, soothes your lips—a healing you desire, but for reasons that are all my own.