Winter...

The quivering wings of the winter antwait for lean winter to end.

I love you in slow,

dim-witted ways,

hardly speaking,

one or two words only.

What caused us each to live hidden?

A wound

the wind,

a word,

a parent.

Sometimes we wait in a helpless way,

awkwardly,

not whole and not healed.

When we hid the wound,

we fell backfrom a human to a shelled life.

we feel the ant’s hard chest,

the carapace, the silent tongue.

This must be the way of the ant,

the winter ant,

the way of thosewho are wounded and want to live:

to breathe,

to sense another,

and to wait.