Winter's Dull Knife

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Winter's Dull Knife


The dull gray blade of Winter's fallen. It
cuts with cold, leaves bloodless wounds:
fatigue, despair, and ague. Winter doesn't
mean well. It doesn't mean anything, although
Lord knows we've tried to dress it in
significance. Some people like to ski.
There are holidays and sweaters.

There's the other hemisphere, which
Summer shacks up with now that it's
left us high and wet. Mostly we walk,
work, and ride in Winter, stay inside
in Winter, sniffling over bowls of soup,
napping with heavy Russian novels,
always hardback, on our chests, mentally
collecting many types of gray, hoping
Winter never finds a sharpening stone.

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom