Giving Me Her Breath

Giving Me Her Breath

We came together in the shadows,
cowl-shaped swamp lanterns
producing enough heat
to melt the snow around our boots.
She was the first to appear
in this unfinished spring,
ready to wrap me as I baked.
A wall of faces watched,
their granite features still cold
with winter. At some point
there would be a crowd
of wellwishers, but this night
just her eyes, the colour of ice
calving in the north. I opened
my mitts to reveal nothing,
but she placed them on her lips
and I'll remember her like that,
giving me her breath.