It’s winter. Wind gnaws
a bone sky.
The sap has sunk.
Stiff and numb, I
no longer feel.
Spring is long gone,
when crocuses poked
their green tongues
up through mud
and a warm wind
rubbed each bud
between its thumb
and finger.
What
keeps me here?
Only my heart
that won’t give up —
a puffed sparrow
gripping a twig,
a stubborn
leaf in a bare shrub.
![[image: pub]](images/design.jpg)