There’s no snow this year.
It’s the memories, instead, that are white
they’re dusted in frost.

You’re through the glass, now
a little more out of focus each time
but I still see you
in the kitchen,
heat in your cheeks from the oven
and there’s coffee in your smile.
The lights on the tree behind us twist,
blurs of color along the windows
and the floorboards and I always thought
they looked a bit like bombs
exploding

We’re still there, together, in another time
before anything began to look
so ugly
and I’m Here, in another time,
with a mug in my hands that’s warm
the way your skin used to be.

There’s a man at the counter
slipping whiskey in his cup.
Dark circles around cold eyes
and I hope he finds it, the warmth
he’s looking for.
If the world were a slightly different place
I might hug him,
I might ask him what the Christmas lights
used to look like when he was young.
I might tell him that when I looked at him today,
I saw you

I falter
in your gaze.
Thoughts skip themselves,
cedar, coffee, cinnamon,
I’m caught—
as though in quicksand.
As one might sink into
a beam of sun
after a journey through the cold

There’s a pause—
you see it, don’t you?
How I linger, in that heat.

You have my attention.
My pulse,
every goddamn breath

I think you know it.
And I think I hate you for it