Hayley Bowen
Tell me again of winter
of the fat dripping into the pan and the way the smell of dinner
stays in our hair all night. Tell me of the sleep spoiled by a cold arm
breaching warm sanctuary of blanket and body. Remind me how
to love the smell of the heater’s first reluctant run, burning
off eight months of dust and stillness. The sun is nothing but cold light
but it is light enough to read by and that’s all we really need. We only
go outside for new books and better coffee and I want to know we could stay
that way. I ache for the quarter mile of morning between the front gate
and the post office. I ache for the clean sting of frozen breath. Look
how the bluebird acts like sky for us when we start resenting all this grey. Look
how the trees bend to offer us the snow from their arms and tell me why
we would ever refuse their gift. Tell me that we could stay this way, Januarying
with the oven and the books and the birds. Tell me again of winter, I promise
I’m listening.
stays in our hair all night. Tell me of the sleep spoiled by a cold arm
breaching warm sanctuary of blanket and body. Remind me how
to love the smell of the heater’s first reluctant run, burning
off eight months of dust and stillness. The sun is nothing but cold light
but it is light enough to read by and that’s all we really need. We only
go outside for new books and better coffee and I want to know we could stay
that way. I ache for the quarter mile of morning between the front gate
and the post office. I ache for the clean sting of frozen breath. Look
how the bluebird acts like sky for us when we start resenting all this grey. Look
how the trees bend to offer us the snow from their arms and tell me why
we would ever refuse their gift. Tell me that we could stay this way, Januarying
with the oven and the books and the birds. Tell me again of winter, I promise
I’m listening.
Biography
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Hayley Bowen (she/her) is currently an MFA candidate at Syracuse University where she is Assistant Poetry Editor at Salt Hill Journal. Her first chapbook, Dearly Departed, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2022. Hayley is an avid craft beer enthusiast, a terrible knitter, and lives in an attic in upstate New York with her pet moss ball, Peat. She is found on Twitter and Instagram @_hbow and at her website, hayleybowenpoetry.com.
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