Frost

Winking embers sputter red to black
Her wakeful gaze on sleeping husband's back
Fully clothed in deeply-quilted dreams
Moonlight frames his face in frozen beams
'Cross the farms, a distant whistle sreams
Frost

As naked seedlings bend on freezing roots
She shakes his shoulders, gropes for ragged shoes
Wordless frenzy up and down the rows
Draping leaves in quilts and stripped-off clothes
Ghosted breath in windless silver cold
Frost

Sturdy oaken table, straight-backed chair
Burn bit by bit in greedy white-gold glare
His blazing eyes, the hatchet's careless cuts
Her thinclad stupor, wide-eyed hungry flush
She inches in; their elbows don't quite brush
Frost

Dying spark, a teasing pop and crack
Winking embers sputter red to black
Across the farms, the whistle thin and shrill
Two huddled shadows, moonset deep and still
Mantled stems pray dawn to crack the chill
Frost