February

Sometimes a flag quietly appears
and leads one to a camp in the snow.
 
Oh, I am sick. I fade, I fall,
I curse this month, all it wants
 
to be. Its lot is the same
each time, unthawed.
 
Yet it taunts.
Dreamer month!
 
Another is just as warm,
as firm, as close to sweat and sigh
 
as I was, and this month
knows it. This month
 
sits close-lipped
and wise before the fire.

Copyright © 2018 Jill Osier. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Winter 2018.