"The Coldest Winter"

The Coldest Winter (January 20, 2017)
Lynn Weber

Snow falls outside the White House, Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

It’s different this year.
The dog hardly moves from his polyfill bed.
The heat pump grinds haplessly.
Layers are applied.
Doorflaps are rigged.
“If your feet are cold, put on a hat,”
my father always said. So I do.

But nothing quite buffers us from the outside,
the chill that’s made our bones brittle.

I always boasted that the cold didn’t bother me.
I loved the snow,
the trees silhouetted at twilight.
Maybe it’s the cancer, but for the first time in my life
I think of moving,
the hope of beauty frozen still by the
wicked, wicked winter of 2017.