Your Kitchen

The stove is warm against my back

A scatter of branches 

Divides up the white sky outside

Photos of you, me, everyone, 

On the fridge, looking out,

Smiling at our future selves

Connected across time

And the heat of the stove

A heart, pumping out into this house

Its warmth uncurling through hallways

And dark rooms

Through the days and months of my year

So I can feel it now, 

Six months and 200 miles away

And in every shadow I can see

The amber glow of those days

Feeding the fire to keep it alive

The embers flicker, faint and nearly gone

I blow gently, to prolong the glow

Charcoal sketches in the creases of my hand

Birds in the branches

The stove against my back

Warming me, 

Until I’m there again