by Ann Howells
November,
moon of falling cold,
ice blighted, snow infested,
overcast sky tightened down—
fierce and oppressive—
as earth pulls cold around her.
Edges appear indistinct,
colors not quite right,
and night rushes in
between one booted footstep
and the next,
an infinity of darkness
as winter concedes
one stingy half-day
for every night and a half.
Jackets smell like old dogs,
and ghosts of breath hover.
Persistent winter tugs,
a relentless two-year-old;
frigid air stretches thin,
fragile as balloon-skin.
Ann Howells’ poetry has recently appeared in Crannog (Ire), San Pedro River Review, and Spillway among others. She serves on the board of Dallas Poets Community, a 501-c-3 non-profit, and has edited, Illya’s Honey, since 1999, recently going digital and taking on a co-editor. Her publications are: Black Crow in Flight (Main Street Rag, 2007), Under a Lone Star (Village Books Press, 2016), Letters for My Daughter (Flutter Press, 2016) and Cattlemen and Cadillacs, an anthology of Dallas/Ft. Worth poets which she edited (Dallas Poets Community Press 2016).
