Echt winter and punctilious snow bow
the hemlocks with their laying on of hands,
extending this late light. Here I present
myself, still keeping January vows
and trundling my wide way, trenching strands
of crushed pearl, icy aisles of good intent.
Our windows down the hill are coming on,
precisely starlit in their programmed time,
and safe. Their four-square constellations tell
no stories. What if living fire shone
against our glass, its flicker like a chime
self-rung by pulling at the wick? The swell
of its unruly purity might sound
and all our tapered spirits flare unwound.
–
Libby Maxey is a senior editor at Literary Mama. Her poems have appeared in Emrys, Pirene’s Fountain, Stoneboat, and elsewhere, and her first poetry collection, Kairos, won Finishing Line Press’s 2018 New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition. Her nonliterary activities include singing classical repertoire and mothering two sons.