Winter at Home

In the lead of winter
bleak trees stand like forks
in clotted cream about to fall
from the weight on their branches.
There is only darkness when we wake.
Even the promise of the solstice
doesn’t resurrect the feeling of hope
we had last spring. It seems
never to come and mired in our world
without miracles we cannot see past
the shadows that fall outside the windows.
The world is a specter that sweeps
past us without notice in a corridor
filled with doors leading
to nowhere but here.
We are haunted by the silent
snow that drifts against the door
falling over the threshold
when we try to leave.

~Melissa Carpenter