It was the year we fed the animals:
the birds, the possum, the brilliant fox
red against white snow. The winter
stretched on past April, past the fox
in the field, small against all that brown.
Days when the sky filled with birds
for miles. The hours I spent wondering how
I could ever go a night without you.
The long trips and dirty hotel rooms.
The Spanish moss dripping off the trees
like poetry. The sunny day on the dock.
The work. The pain at being with oneself.
It was the winter that you taught me
“One can never step into the same person twice.”

Christine Yurick’s poems have appeared in journals print and online and are forthcoming in American Arts Quarterly and 823 on High. She is the founding editor of Think Journal. She lives with her three cats, and her husband, the photographer Michael Kahn.