Wintergone

Wind & spitting rain
washed away the last
of this week’s winter.

I am twisted up into
white sheets feeling
emptied under drifts,

homeless, discarded
face down, curled up
in an oak’s last snow.

There’s shame having
clean, full, warm, safe,
but no voice speaking.

Even an empty pitcher
holds utility, a promise
to carry & serve & give.

Time calls that we turn
inside out—to decorate
skin with unsaid words

& our hands & mouths
must touch eyes & ears
or they echo pointlessly.

You left me wintergone
and these kindest walls
stay stainless steel cold.

Still now, I read myself,
warming, unlike two in
one—but just over zero.

PH Coleman has sold shoes, taught chemistry, and curated an art collection. So clearly, the next step was poetry. His work looks at and talks to people inside and the snag woods outside his large window.