Winter’s first snow came without surprise
in early December when the trees
were already naked, bare-branched and
revealed.
It lay in crisp puddles that blended
into one icy sheet,
the kind that crunches with each step.
While you were there, trying to keep warm,
I was here, eating a pear
that crunched with that same intensity
because it was out of season.
The bite was tense,
pushing against the rest of its body, into itself,
very unlike the bite of an apple
and more like shoveling snow,
and I knew it was winter.
