winter's approach

 

if I could read the grains of sand

on just one beach

I would know the prayer songs

of sweet salt breezes,

the hidden truth of tidepools;

I would know everything    & nothing.

 

asleep on the couch

your dreams flutter,

escape to the roof next door;

I wonder if they too watch

the exquisite death of rose petals

falling to the ground.

 

surrounded by your quiet slumber

I forget the frailty

of this moment    & the next;

doors that stick in winter,

unanswered mail;

the mourning of dahlias

ruined by the frost,

hobbled by the cold

like bones.

 

 

 

Cheryl Latif earned semi-finalist and honorable mention in New Millennium Writings’ nineteenth and twentieth contests, respectively; her poems have been part of public arts projects and have appeared in journals and anthologies including New Millennium Writings, Comstock Review, and So Luminous the Wildflowers, and will be included in the fall issue of Spillway. She lives in Seattle.