Midwinter

for Emily

Wearing Wellington boots, we followed the retriever
along the perimeter of the property.

Just that morning a man and his son
had brought in firewood from the fallen tree.

Through barberry: a small clearing
in the woods, hollow like the inside of a cello.

I walked around a tree stump, like Mustardseed.
After sunset, we looked through a square window

into the stark cabin where she writes.
Within a bubble in the antique glass, the sky swirled—

reflected like a sequin, like summer even,
though it was New Years Day, and the world

was dusky, and the dog, the house, the woods, the books—
they weren't even ours.

- Richie Hofmann (from The Adroit Journal)

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