Maybe this
winter
will be easier;

maybe there is hope beyond frost;
maybe our breath will jut
in steamy tomorrows

across a river that never
freezes; maybe your dreams will dream yet
tachycardic, wild and blue,

like the pulse of the ocean,
muffling the deaths that lie spread-
eagled across decades,

hissing obscenities
under the bedspread, the deaths
that smell ever-so-softly

of overripe promises,
understated like
magnolia blossoms

at the end of summer…
like secrets for a December
no man has seen.