Winter

Each time I pull the quilt over me
it’s like slipping within a question mark
that hangs over my bed
prodding the false warmth
with which I sleep this cold winter.

But I know nothing of winter.
I see it only in news clippings of cold waves
or in the shivering of a mendicant
pressed against my car’s window
or in the vaporous breath of an illicit lover
exhaled across my married face.



  Dan Husain