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see your breath
breaches startle
the assurance
of the still dark
winter philosophers
of our past days
who are frozen
in the certainty
that all
their arguments
over truth
have been settled

in strange
disconnect

from the proof
of the thrum
and thrill
that links them in
imperceptible debt
each to the other

cold calls
promise little
except possibilites
made visible
when strangers
collide

Winter solstice

Like crickets rub
their chirps to the
tempo dictated
by temperature,
striking a noisy cadence
with their wing shrills
scraping a song
against the ridges
of silence until
the season’s decline
decides upon the time
of the last trill
no one knows
just which moment that is
until it is clear that it was

like “you’re breaking up”
means you understand
you can call from anywhere
to anywhere,
just be advised that the speed
of momentum sometimes
dictates,

that static stands for
the closing when you’ve
said all you’ll get to say
and there’s no need to try
to reconnect just to say
goodbye,
but you don’t know
if that is what it is
when it is
or if it is
unless it was

like the blues slide
guitar fingers begin
to play the pick up notes
that lead into another
tune, lending a transition
to lightly repeated riffs
and glide along the strings
of everbody’s sad
song breathlessly
cooling the space
while everyone waits
for the nod,
the players long sighed,
mmmmmhhhh,
the drop off notes that clean up
the expectations of more where
the words end but not the music
which really never ends

and it doesn’t matter that
no one knows exactly
where that is,
or what that means
until they understand
they’ll never know
until they do.