If it’s cold enough—
non-essentials shut down 
so two people can winter- 
over together.
I am telling you 
what we have will last.

It’s not your fault my distrustful side
is dug in deep 
from childhood
when my mother 
had the kitchen painted yellow, 
brightest shade on the color chart
and how Dad kept it that way
after the divorce.

What does all this mean, anyway,
when I can’t outrun the words written
about me in the stars? Born January
first in the hands of the Finger Lakes
during the blizzard of the century 
the reason I won’t go to Florida
with you. When the house we share
is snowed-in and muffle-bound, 
swaddled torpid box snug like a casket, 
it is enough waking up next to you 
and from under the covers we wonder 
where thirty years have gone.

From Formulary (Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press, 2008).
Winner of their 2008 Poetry Chapbook Award.
Used here with the author’s permission.