New Snow Rising

Eating a scone, I move to the sliding glass doors that open to the balcony, chew without tasting; taking in calories I am no longer desperate for. Dry swallow swallowed. New snow is falling down, moving through the trees wearing that familiar white lace and pearl gown I used to watch her disrobe just for me. Being inside while it snows, drinking this tea...watching her, this woman of sky, move while unaware I'm watching...I feel like I am with another lover three stories up, yet alone. I am cheating on her in secret and it is only wounding me. I am behind glass standing on white carpet. She only knows that she knew me well more than a few yesterdays ago. She only knows it is spring and we had the last three whole winters together before fingers that held tight, opened. She is a more subtle memory now, delicate, a whisper turned down low and smelling slightly like ice breaking evergreen. Soon she'll be reduced to just this memory note. Who I was has also evaporated, risen up through the ceiling vent to the outside world, up past the yellow, red, green and blue kite abandoned to struggle in the leafless treetops outside this door; a reduction of myself putting everything tied by one strong string waiting on the next passing wind; putting everything into the ink of a pen.
The book gets louder, more demanding. Thank God. I can't bear another brush of soft suggestion. The floor of my room is thirty five maps moving toward a bed I won't lay on. The desk is feathers, a snake rattle, the first moleskin walk journal open, spine broken, and twenty pieces of longing; confessions shaped into bone, an ounce of Canadian gold sewn into a boot toe, silver beads separating claws on a string, and a worn pocket full of trinkets that smells like walking in a humid summer. If I just get it down on paper I can start to breathe deeply again knowing I no longer have to carry this all inside, hands already full and spilling.