Self-Portrait with Black Ice 

     Caroline Murphy

 

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.