The snowflakes groped me today,

Audaciously bypassed my sloppily knotted scarf,

Slipped beneath my neckline,

A glacial caress.

I was immediately violated,

Despoiled by precipitation

Dribbling obscenely down my chest.

Although analogies aren’t in vogue,

The gusty grip of the weather was

Very much unlike your eyes,

A mystifying melody of a color,

Warm as cinnamon rolls and

Bright as a newborn crocus.

The wintry whisper was

Altogether contrary to your left arm,

Whose pulse I can feel like

The rattle of an old radiator,

Stalwart, welcoming.

The frosty infringement was

The direct antithesis to your

Plain befuddlement,

That gently glowing chuckle

When I said,

“You smell like pasta spices,”

And your buttery delight when you made me

Sheepishly repeat it.

So often I wish I were a painter,

A photographer,

Employing anything,

Anything but this clumsy language,

These spatters of uncaring consonants,

Anything to open wide and just

Receive

The sanctity of snowflakes under the

Lamp-post’s luminous sigh,

The ebb and flow of your breathing

Beneath my stethoscope shoulder.