November Is My Husband

The air smells like wet bark and cozy roots and closing things

(I shut my heart like a winter window to block the smell of snow)

(I draw the curtains across it because I don't want the neighbours to see)

Leaves flatten underfoot—crumbling old letters rejoining

a vast, indifferent universe that has no opinion

one way or another. Time marches blandly on.

The river flows heavy now, a crooked spine under the caress

of ice. Smoke clings to the roofs,

its fingers smell like cedar and people fitting together,

a belonging smell which gets caught in my throat.

Somewhere a fox turns white like it's ashamed.

Somewhere the moon reads its December monologue to itself.

(But is it indifferent too?)

(Or is it lonely)

(Too?)

I stand in the hush between seasons, welcoming

winter months, wind months, hibernation months

My breath is a close that rises before prayer can take root.

(Later I'll light a candle and ask for a blanket to cover me head and all.)

This pause is hushed and pregnant with trees,

bone-bare and certain trees,

the sky a watercolour bruise.

The earth exhales with me. Chill seeps through my boots.

I watch for the last leaf to fall,

and listen for the first snow

to graze my lips.