Self-portrait with black ice

it’s January again and I’m still

picking pieces of you out of my hair  

like shattered glass after a car crash. 

the cold convinces me your voice

won’t turn to ice the minute

it hears I’m back in town. 

the town I never really left says

I learned how to thaw but not

how to keep from freezing. 

the thing about winter is it never

pretends to be warm, by which I mean

the only truly honest place

I’ve ever known is buried

under twenty inches every year

and refuses to be dug out. 

I like to imagine you roaming the streets

naming avenues and boulevards 

after your own daydreams

instead of my imagined nightmares.

you’re at home here, which is all

I ever really needed. someday

I’ll get on a plane, and someday

you won’t be there when I arrive. 

winter will come each year as promised

and I’ll walk the streets alone

having no idea what you call them now.