The world outside my window is white
in ways that seem ethereal and brittle;
the temperature these past few days
has hovered in that limbo between
frost and thaw, conjuring ghostly fog
that powders the trees and bushes
in the early dawn gray with a white
rime delicate as dust. Morning minutes
suspend themselves like caught breath
waiting for the sun to bring some color
back to things, but in this instant
everything empties into a white
that whispers of inevitability,
of relinquishment,
of sleep so deep
the dreams we dream are draining—
until that first sliver of light cuts through
cloud and the day refills like the cup
in my hand and I sip.


© by Mike Orlock.
Used with the author’s permission.